Firefighters across Massachusetts are banding together to fly “thin blue line” flags in honor of a slain policeman after they were forced to remove the banners from Hingham firetrucks this week amid a local controversy.
Hingham Fire Chief Steve Murphy and Police Chief Glenn Olsson recently told their personnel the black-and-blue flags paying tribute to Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna had prompted a citizen complaint and were in violation of a policy forbidding political messaging on town property.
After initially refusing to remove the flags, members of the Hingham Local 2398 firefighters union said they teamed up with Hingham Police and Weymouth Police and firefighters Thursday to take them down “on our own terms and provide the highest level of respect that they deserve.”
Now, the Professional Fire Fighters Association of Massachusetts will send one of the flags to unions around the state to be hung in a show of solidarity with their public safety brethren. The flag will be presented to Chesna’s family after making the rounds, while the other two fly at Weymouth Police headquarters.
“We take our line-of-duty deaths very seriously; we never forget. So for us, it had special meaning,” Richard MacKinnon Jr., president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts union, told the Herald. “I realize that things mean different things to different people, but for us that’s what the flag meant — to memorialize Sgt. Chesna.”
Nearly 100 local people have expressed interest in flying the flag, which MacKinnon intends to begin sending around next week with an honor guard escort. The traveling tribute has also drawn interest from beyond the Bay State, including in Canada.
The “thin blue line” symbol has become a lightning rod amid the movement against police brutality.
“Our Brothers and Sisters in blue have been under unprecedented and seemingly unrelenting attacks,” MacKinnon wrote in a letter to his association Thursday, describing the “overall negative sentiment towards the good men and women that put on a uniform every day and strive to protect and serve.”
MacKinnon said that while the Hingham firefighters’ flags were “deemed offensive” by town officials, the banners merely represent the close ties between firefighters and police.
“We respond to many of the same calls. We experience the same types of tragedies,” he said. “So that’s what it means for us.”
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