Months after a picture of a Melbourne battalion chief wearing a mustache and performing a Nazi salute surfaced, he has returned to work.
Battalion Chief Jody Kahler was not held accountable or disciplined, WKMG reported.
City officials said while the picture was inappropriate and showed extremely poor judgement, their investigators determined Kahler was "not intentionally acting with any kind of racist or antisemitic intent or bias.”
However, the Jewish firefighter, Aaron Starkey, who initially filed the complaint against Kahler said it didn’t matter when the picture was taken because the battalion chief is still working for the city. Kahler tried to convince Starkey not to make a complaint about the photo that was taken in 2007.
Starkey's attorney, Daniel Perez, said in a statement: "...it appears that it is MFD’s policy to placate bad actors rather than censure them. This is a sad day for the MFD, city leadership, and the residents of City of Melbourne..."
