{"id":376063,"date":"2026-08-20T00:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T00:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/376063\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T00:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T00:00:11","slug":"st-lucie-county-fire-district-board-debates-hazing-allegations-and-leadership-suspension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/376063\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Lucie County fire district board debates hazing allegations and leadership suspension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>St. Lucie County fire district board debates hazing allegations and leadership suspension<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbf.com\/news-team\/5922bb8b-f775-4a70-920d-0a7a90c64cec\" aria-label=\"Jade Jarvis profile page\" class=\"css-15eikfp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5922bb8b-f775-4a70-920d-0a7a90c64cec_1658958457.file.png\" width=\"48\" height=\"48\" alt=\"Jade Jarvis\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/a>ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"0\">The St. Lucie County Fire District board met today to discuss hazing allegations, the termination of three firefighters, and the suspension of two others during a contentious meeting.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"1\">Two of the terminated firefighters, Chris Baldwin and Jordon Hutchinson, presented their case, accusing the fire chief and the district&#8217;s attorney of retaliation.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"3\">After more than two hours of discussion, commissioners called a motion to suspend the fire chief and the district attorney. The motion failed, with four out of six commissioners voting against it.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"4\">The situation stems from video footage released by the fire district showing firefighters administering electric shocks to newer employees, which was described as hazing.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"6\">Hutchinson and Baldwin denied the allegations, saying, &#8220;It was not hazing, but it was rather about inclusion, and that no one was hurt or coerced to participate.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"7\">Commissioners approved a motion to continue the discussion at their next meeting in September.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"8\">Stay up to date: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbf.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The latest headlines and weather from WPBF 25<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"9\">Get the latest news updates with the WPBF 25 News app. You can download it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbf.com\/article\/get-wpbf-25-news-on-the-go\/999316\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"10\">Your neighborhood: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbf.com\/local-news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Local coverage from WPBF 25 News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Lucie County fire district board debates hazing allegations and leadership suspension ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4721,6275,141380,10234,6303,82236,5378,5990,141379,151505,11876,5127,171,173,172,49623,221,189],"class_list":["post-376063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-allegation","tag-attorney","tag-chris-baldwin","tag-commissioner","tag-discussion","tag-electric-shock","tag-fire-chief","tag-firefighter","tag-jordon-hutchinson","tag-leadership-suspension","tag-motion","tag-news-app","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-retaliation","tag-weather","tag-wpbf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376063","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=376063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}