Smithtown FD reverses decision to pull Thin Blue Line flag following controversy
The department said it would reinstall the flag today on its rescue truck.
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Feb 26, 2021, 11:17 PM
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Updated 1,246 days ago
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2h agoThe Smithtown Fire Department has changed course on its decision to remove a Thin Blue Line flag from one of its rescue trucks.
About a dozen Long Island residents took to a Smithtown street corner waving flags and chanting their support for police and firefighters in response to the move to put the Thin Blue Line flag back on a department truck. As News 12 reported earlier this week, the department had taken it down after receiving a single complaint.
Department spokesman Rick Torre says the flag has been flying on the back of the truck since 2014 as a sign of support after the murders of NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, who were posthumously promoted to detectives.
Since then, some have come to view the Blue Lives Matter flag as anti-Black Lives Matter and its appearance at Pro-Trump rallies.
The flag was originally taken down in an interest of "peace and harmony."
The department's decision to put the flag back up got a ton of reaction on the News 12 Facebook page from both sides.
After the about-face, the fire department stood by its decision.
"It was an easy decision to put the flag back on the truck," says Torre. "It was a very difficult decision to take the flag down in the first place."
