WTVM.com and WTVM News Leader 9, Columbus, GA | Firefighter takes heat over Facebook photos

Firefighter takes heat over Facebook photos

By Chris Vessell bio | email

LAFAYETTE, AL (WTVM) - It's happening more and more - employees horsing around on the job and the photos end up on Facebook. That's exactly what cost three Lafayette, Alabama firemen their jobs this past August.

This week, one of those firefighters is unveiling the photos, because he wants the public to judge for themselves whether they are grounds for termination. The Lafayette firehouse was Bob Johnson's home away from home.

"I started the first of July in '93 and got my paramedics license in 1995," Bob Johnson said.

Last December, Johnson's girlfriend at the time arranged for he and his fellow firemen to take serious photos to be given as a Christmas present. Afterwards, the firemen began horsing around. The girlfriend who is now his fiance later posted the photos on Facebook.

"As the picture taking went on, the guys started horsing around and being childlike adults," Johnson said.

The photos were brought to the attention of the Lafayette City Council this past August. "We shouldn't have been horsing around on shift. Is that professional? To us it isn't, its our world. We live there. You don't live there" he said.

Johnson and the two other firefighters were discharged. Police Chief Kenneth Vines is the one who recommended the termination.

"I reviewed the pictures, to me they were inappropriate and I recommended to the mayor that their services with the city of Lafayette be terminated," Chief Vines said. The council and the mayor approved the Police Chief's recommendation.

"They admitted it was horseplay and our city policy banded horse play on the city property," Vines added.

Johnson says he was given the choice to resign, which he did. "When everybody else's families were hunkered down during tornados, hurricanes, I was at the firehouse with my brothers, protecting those people that hung me out to dry," Johnson said.

The wounds are still deep, but the Johnson is trying to move on with his life. "It wasn't my livelihood, it was my life," said Johnson.

Bob Johnson has been trying to find a job with other fire departments since his discharge, but with no luck. He's now working at a local hospital and says the past three months have been the most difficult of his life.