{"id":349152,"date":"2026-07-22T22:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T22:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/349152\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T22:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T22:30:10","slug":"florida-firefighters-union-speaks-following-firings-suspensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/349152\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida firefighters’ union speaks following firings, suspensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Lucie firefighters’ union speaks out following firings and suspensions<\/p>\n

The St. Lucie County firefighters union is speaking out as five firefighters were disciplined for allegedly hazing their rookie coworkers. The union calls their actions “comradery building.” <\/p>\n

\"JohnST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n

The St. Lucie County firefighters’ union is speaking out publicly for the first time since five firefighters were disciplined for alleged hazing.<\/p>\n

The fire district said the firefighters accused used a modified bug zapper to administer electric shocks to newer employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were all willfully participating together; no one was coerced or pressured,\u201d said Ryan Sapp, St. Lucie County Local 1377 president. \u201cIt was firefighters playing and joking with each other. That\u2019s what it was, period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Your neighborhood: Local coverage from WPBF 25 News<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

The St. Lucie County firefighters union is speaking out as five firefighters were disciplined for allegedly hazing their rookie coworkers. The union calls their actions “comradery building.”<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

After an independent investigation, three firefighters were terminated and two others were suspended.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, WPBF spoke with two of the terminated firefighters. Both denied any wrongdoing, expressing that they just want their jobs back.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone a part of the videos, we\u2019re all still friends to this day. It was just joking around,\u201d said Doug Boudrias, one of the terminated firefighters.<\/p>\n

Get the latest news updates with the WPBF 25 News app. You can download it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The incident comes after a series of previous complaints filed against the fire district that led to multiple independent investigations.<\/p>\n

One of the investigations revealed that the department had a culture problem. Multiple firefighters were reassigned as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Lucie firefighters’ union speaks out following firings and suspensions The St. Lucie County firefighters union is speaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[142878,116019,20714,5990,1779,22922,28,142875,675,142877,3574,171,173,172,138156,142876,142879,807,1402,142874,19294,4035,26368,8065,189],"class_list":["post-349152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-411c-a66b-a08b67c5e83d","tag-aligncenter","tag-fire-district","tag-firefighter","tag-firefighters","tag-firing","tag-florida","tag-independent-investigation","tag-local-coverage","tag-newsimage-idd56adbc7-e75a-4252-bbaf-ea08b7fc4f73","tag-part","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-sizemedium","tag-source-relatedeveryone","tag-source-relatedget","tag-south-florida","tag-st-lucie-county","tag-st-lucie-firefighter-union","tag-suspension","tag-union","tag-videos","tag-viral","tag-wpbf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}