The Central Coventry Fire District has been consistently in the news over the past few years for multiple reasons. Most recently, the Central Coventry Fire District found itself in the news regarding an issue with the American flag.



Last year, Central Coventry Fire District Board Chairman, Fred Gralinski, publicly said that firefighters were like animals and terrorists. Gralinski is no stranger to using derogatory terms to describe firefighters. He has also called them thugs and yahoos. Gralinski also stated that the firefighters looked like ISIS with flags on the back of their trucks. According to Gralinski, having a big American flag on the back of the truck is un-American. Gralinski asked for the flags to be taken off of the trucks.

In a meeting last week, a policy was implemented that calls for any decals or stickers to be approved by the Fire Chief before being put on the trucks because the trucks are owned by the district. There was no mention of flags or decals that are currently on the trucks.



The Board Chairman has since retracted his statement calling it "a poor choice of words". He is also holding that the Central Coventry Firefighters have not been asked to remove flags or decals from the trucks. Captain Dave Gorman says otherwise. Captain Gorman holds that he has been asked in private to remove the flags. Gorman says, "It shouldn't even be a conversation. The flags flying. If you're American, that's all that matters". The Board of Directors have also halted contract discussions as a result of this issue.

The Facebook page, Cranston Scanner, posted a short video of Central Coventry Fire District Chairman Gralinski calling firefighters animals and terrorists on May 25, 2016. As of midnight on May 27, 2016, the video had been viewed over seven thousand times and shared over four hundred times. The post had also generated fifty-seven comments which were resoundingly supportive of the Central Coventry Firefighters. Citizens and firefighters alike are outraged at the idea of removing the American flag from fire apparatus. Pictures of flags on fire apparatus from across the state have been making the rounds on social media in support of Central Coventry Firefighters.



Two people commented on the Cranston Scanner post in support of Fred Gralinski's use of the word "terrorists" in describing firefighters. Those two people were Ryan and Brett Gralinski who are the sons of Fred Gralinski. Ryan Gralinski simply commented and said, "The firemen are terrorists". Brett Gralinski, however, went much further. Much of what Brett Gralinski commented has to be read slowly and interpreted due to the enormous amount of spelling errors and grammatical problems. Much of what he said is unintelligible.

Brett Gralinski says, "F*ck the flag and f*ck you. You're pathetic." He goes on to say that humans are inherently pathetic and says that he is pathetic too. He states, "If you were not (pathetic) then you wouldn't give 2 sh*ts about a flag on a fire truck". According to Brett, the flag is nothing more than a way to divide and conquer and that nationalism is a scam to "trick people into self-destruction".



Brett states that he has done fifteen years of research on the American flag and challenges people to prove him wrong. Brett also believes that his cat said, "Bring it on, but only with intelligence" to the people that disagree. Brett goes on to call supporters of the American flag "mindless sheep" and after saying all of this, he insists that he is a real patriot.



Brett Gralinski says, "By knowing what I am, if you mean crazy then you are absolutely right. We actually agree on something. I am f*cking crazy, but I'm a mere product of my environment". This statement made by Brett himself speaks volumes to what the Gralinski family must be like.



The credibility of Brett Gralinski is questionable as he has proved that he has a disregard for law and authority. The thirty-five-year-old has a lengthy criminal record including charges for felony drug dealing multiple times, possession, domestic simple assault, reckless driving, multiple charges for domestic disorderly conduct, fraudulent use of credit cards, driving with a suspended license and obstructing a police officer, multiple counts of obtaining money under false pretenses, breaking and entering to a dwelling, and simple assault. Although Chairman Gralinski has apologized for his statement calling firefighters terrorists, it is evident that it was not just "a poor choice of words" like he says. This was a deliberate, arrogant, pompous attack on union firefighters. He has disgraced the Central Coventry Fire District, the taxpayers, and the country as a whole by comparing firefighters, who risk their lives to save others, to ISIS terrorists, who take lives with no remorse.