More than 1,000 off-duty firefighters, chanting gbring the brothers home,h broke through police barricades and marched onto the World Trade Center site November 2 to protest Mayor Rudolph Giulianifs scaling back of efforts to recover the remains of victims of the September 11 disaster.

The protest saw scattered fist fights between firefighters and cops trying to hold them back, resulting in the arrest of a dozen protesters, some of whom were held incommunicado into the night in a Harlem police precinct far from the site of the rally. They were initially charged with inciting to riot, trespass and other criminal acts, but the most serious felony charges were subsequently dropped.

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NY TIMES November 5, 2001 THE FIREFIGHTERS
Second Union Leader Is Charged With Trespassing in Demonstration at
Ground Zero
""This comes right from the top," Capt. Peter L. Gorman, head of the
2,500-member Uniformed Fire Officers Association, said after
surrendering Eunder the threat of forcible arrest, his lawyer said E
at a police station in Manhattan to be booked on the misdemeanor
charge. Kevin E. Gallagher, president of the 9,000-member Uniformed
Firefighters Association, also blamed the mayor after his arrest
Saturday night. "The message the city is sending is that if you don't
agree with what a union says, you simply arrest its president," Tom
Butler, Mr. Gallagher's spokesman, said..."The mayor fails to realize
that New York City is not a dictatorship, where if you don't like
what a union is doing you can just go and lock up a union's
president," the firefighters' union said. "The message being sent
from City Hall is that if you don't agree with this administration,
we will get you." Captain Gorman, a firefighter for 28 years, called
his arrest an outrage. "They're putting me through the system like
I'm a thug," he said. He called the mayor a "fascist" and referred to
Mr. Kerik and Mr. Von Essen as "Giuliani's goons."
NY Post 11/5/2001 KERIK BLASTS BRAVEST IN MELEE
"Union lawyer Steven Rabinowitz said Gorman was arrested because he
had the courage to publicly attack Giuliani for allowing the other
firefighters to be busted. "In the mayor's view, these men are heroes
as long as they shut up and do what they're told," Rabinowitz said.
City union leaders backed up the firefighters and demand an immediate
apology from Giuliani. Brian McLaughlin of the Central Labor Council,
said the mayor "treats these people like they're bums - with no
respect." Union officials said they may sue the city for false arrest
and malicious prosecution."
Daily News 11/5/2001 Nab 2nd Fire Union Chief
"Yesterday, the heads of the two fire unions, joined by other labor
leaders outside Manhattan Criminal Court, charged that Giuliani was
unfairly retaliating against unions. "The families are suffering, the
firefighters are suffering, and the mayor refuses to sit down and
discuss this with them," said Randi Weingarten, president of the
United Federation of Teachers. "Because these folks have the temerity
to say, 'We don't agree with you, Mr. Mayor,' they are thrown in
jail. That is a violation of anybody's basic right to speak and
represent people."
Newsday Letters 10/26/2001
"Since the tragedy an Sept. 11, my husband, a New York City Emergency
Service Police officer has been working a minimum of 12 hours--per-
day (most often, they have been 14-16 hour days). He has had only one
day off in al-most three weeks. Despite Mayor Rudy Giuliani's cries
of "hero, hero, hero" over the years, he has refused to pay these
officers what they deserve. The last contract included a zero percent
increase. These devoted men and women are currently working without a
contract and have been doing so since last July. This is not how they
should be treated. It's time for him to go. He has made the lives of
city police officers and their families a living hell for years. Most
officers work two jobs and most wives work also, and we still have a
difficult time making ends meet. I voted for term limits when I lived
in the city and I look forward to the day he leaves. He is so cocky
that he thinks only he can take care of the problems at hand." -
Melinda Camastro, East Meadow

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