(CNN) — The EMTs involved in the Tyre Nichols case are being defended by the president of the Memphis, Tennessee, firefighters union.
The Memphis Fire Fighters Association president, Thomas Malone, claimed in a letter to the Memphis City Council that his members “were not given adequate information upon dispatch or upon arrival on the scene” where Nichols, a Black man of 29 years old, had been repeatedly punched and kicked by police following a traffic stop on January 7.
The suggestion made by Malone was that there was information being hidden by those already present, which led to our members handling things improperly.
Due to their failure to provide emergency care on January 7, three Memphis Fire Department employees were fired.
Dr. Jeff Warren, a member of the Memphis City Council, provided the letter to CNN. Ben Crump, an attorney for the Nichols family, and Malone have both been contacted by CNN, but no response has been received as of yet.
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Malone also expressed his “disheartenment” at witnessing some of the department’s 1,600 employees disparaging one another last week during a city council meeting.
Every every time, hundreds of calls are answered by our members. Unfortunately, some people have taken the position that one instance should be used to judge the sterling work done by these committed public officials,” he remarked.
Gina Sweat, the chief of the Memphis Fire Department, explained before the council that her department’s handling of the Nichols case was due to both training deficiencies and the failure of EMTs to take personal responsibility on a call.
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The fire department said last month that emergency medical technicians Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge as well as fire Lt. Michelle Whitaker had been sacked.
According to an inquiry, the two EMTs who responded to the first call, in which they heard someone had been pepper sprayed, and information they were given at the site, “failed to complete an adequate patient evaluation of Mr. Nichols,” Sweat said in a news release.
The statement made by the chief indicated that Whitaker had stayed in the fire vehicle.
According to the fire department, Nichols was lying on the ground resting against a police car when the truck bringing the EMTs arrived at the scene at around 8:41 p.m. The department said that at 8:46 p.m. an ambulance was called. According to the fire department, the ambulance came at 8:55 p.m. and left with Nichols 13 minutes later.
And first responders frequently stepped away from Nichols between the time of the EMTs’ arrival and that of the ambulance, as Nichols intermittently fell to his side, can be seen on pole-camera video.
