I strongly believe in the right to privacy. What people do at home on their own time – as long as nothing is being harmed – is none of my business. Those actions also shouldn’t affect ones job either unless the action was part of the job. That’s why I don’t agree that a firefighter who shot his dogs so he wouldn’t have to pay a boarding fee should be fired from his job.
The thousands of people who e-mailed and called about a firefighter who shot his two dogs got the attention of Chief Ned Pettus Jr. Yesterday, Pettus recommended that Firefighter David Santuomo be fired.
Santuomo appeared in his dress uniform on Wednesday for a 30-minute meeting with Pettus at Fire Division headquarters, said Battalion Chief David Whiting, a division spokesman. A union representative was present to make sure Santuomo was treated fairly per the firefighters’ contract.
Pettus issued a one-page memo to Safety Director Mitchell Brown yesterday, recommending that Santuomo be fired.
Santuomo, a 13-year veteran of the Fire Division, had pleaded guilty to three criminal misdemeanors — two counts of animal cruelty and one count of possessing a criminal tool — in June for the killing of the dogs.
I agree that the guy is a nut job and should be called out for his actions – and he did answer the charges – but unless the crime involved his job I don’t think he should lose his job.
I get tired of people wanting to draw and quarter anyone who does a despicable thing. It just doesn’t seem enough for the justice system to do its thing and some people want to return to the days of the public stocks and scarlet letters.
How is shoting your dogs not harming anything??????????? Ithink this man should be raped and shot. I hope he gets what he deserves in prison.
Raped and shot????? Maybe if some people treated human issues like affordable health care with the same zelousness they do when animals are involved, we might actually have some reform.
I gotta say I'm torn on this one. Knowing what animal cruelty says about a person's whole psychological state, in a position such as fire fighter, where "doing one's job" depends on being selfless and risking your own life every day in service of others, to be able to shoot dogs to get out of paying to board them could be relative. At a minimum, it indicates a willing disregard for life. I would not want to go to a doctor who kills dogs in her or his basement, I would not want my child taught by a teacher who strangles cats, and I would not trust a police officer who makes target practice out of neighborhood pets. There is a measure of trust built into certain occupations, and to lead dogs into a basement and kill them would cause me to question that person's ability to perform to the expected level of trust.
That said, I do think comments about raping and shooting a human who kills dogs are insane, yet another sign of how wacky we can be as a society. People will spend $10,000 on dog cancer treatment while kids go to school without shoes and old people can't afford medicine, no matter how much taxpayer money is given to private corporations for Medicare D, and dog cancer treatment is worth $10,000? To me, that is as inhumane as killing dogs to avoid the cost of boarding them- what about killing humans to avoid the cost of clothing, feeding, and caring for them? And why can we, in pop entertainment, show women raped and tortured in dungeons or men blown to pieces, but kill an animal with special effects and you are targeted as a nut? You are 100% correct, Doug, that our values are twisted.
In the end, in my opinion, this never should have been reported as news. The guy should have been given a psychological evaluation (in private, as is required by law) to see if he was judged capable of performing the duties of his job, and that decision should have been made by professionals who better understand both the human mind and the requirements of being an effective fire fighter, not the nuts who read the newspaper and threaten his life. Was this act abhorant and disturbing? Absolutely. Would a person feel different about Firefighter Santuomo if he had been the one who pulled a loved one out of a burning building, or had been part of the group who stopped a blaze that could have destroyed irreplacable memories and caused personal and financial devestation? I expect so. I do understand, in his chose profession, the need to question this act as part of job performance. I do not think it is a question to be decided by the media and anyone who can access this media, especially since we do not often show ourselves as sensible and thoughtful societal stewards.