A Black firefighter with the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) has sued his agency for discrimination and retaliation for opposing the use of water hoses against racial justice protesters last summer.

On Tuesday, firefighter Omar Wilks accused FDNY officials of what he said were unfair disciplinary proceedings as retaliation for his opposition to using the water hoses. His lawsuit names the city, FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro and five other department officials in it, and seeks damages for violations of Wilks' freedom of speech. Wilks’ lawsuit also says that the FDNY acted against him because of speaking out against racial discrimination in the department.

“Firefighter Wilks was unlawfully punished for seeking to change the culture of discrimination at the FDNY,” said Aymen Aboushi, who is representing Wilks. “We will continue to fight for equality and ensure that the FDNY no longer retaliates against its members who do the same.”

The FDNY did not respond to a request for comment from the New York Daily News. It directed all inquiries to the New York City Law Department, which only acknowledged the case against the city. A spokesman said that the charges had yet to be substantiated and that it would let the lawsuit play out in court.

During last summer's racial justice protests that spawned from the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, Wilks, an eight-year fire veteran and ordained minister, said that his supervisor ordered firefighters to "assist in controlling protesters" by using their fire hoses against them. Wilks objected and the hoses were ultimately not used, but his lawsuit said the official who made the order did not face any consequences.

Wilks alleges that he was also being punished for raising complaints about discrimination against Black firefighters in the FDNY. For this, he received a summons over his complaints, which his lawsuit says was the result of angering higher up officials.

He was later suspended for a month and reassigned to a position where he could not collect overtime pay after protesting outside FDNY headquarters. The defendants later forced Wilks to undergo therapy before even returning to work.

Use of fire hoses against protesters has a long and charged history in the United States. During the 1960s, civil rights protesters were often blasted with water cannons by cities, including at the order of Birmingham, Alabama’s Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor in 1963.

The FDNY has for years has been hit with racial discrimination lawsuits by firefighters of color. In 2014, an association of Black firefighters successfully sued the FDNY for discriminating against their members. Just in last July, another firefighter of Peruvian descent accused the department of hazing him on account of his race, according to the New York Post.

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