The Detroit Fire Fighter’s Association has filed two grievance reports accusing the Detroit Fire Commissioner of making purchases without their knowledge.
Mike Nevin is the association president and says Commissioner Eric Jones purchased body armor vests for firefighters and EMS.
The city says $500,000 was added to the budget for vests and was approved by city council.
In the Grievance reports filed June 29th, 2017 the association says Jones “bypassed and undermined the DFFA and the health and safety committee by unilaterally choosing vests.”
Nevin says there have been more stabbings and glass situations when firefighters are on the scene, but says without proper training and testing it’s not clear if these vests would do the job.
"If you want to protect our people with some type of ballistic and or bullet proof vest, we're good with that, but let's look at the data that's out there. Let's study these vests and let's test these vests," Nevin says.
We reached out to the fire commissioner, but he declined to comment.
