HOUSTON – The Reed family said a social media post made by a firefighter added insult to injury after their home was destroyed on Sunday morning.
Mickey Reed is now speaking out so it doesn’t happen again.
Mickey looked through the remains of his childhood home in Galena Park after the house caught on fire on Sunday around 5 a.m.
He said eight of his family members were inside, including his parents.
“My aunt woke up in the middle of the night and thought it was the fireplace she thought smelled,” said Mickey.
When his aunt turned around, the home was filled with smoke.
“She started screaming for everyone to get up and get out,” added Mickey.
Although everyone made it out of the home safely, moments later, a family friend sent Reed a screenshot of his home on fire with the words, “Staying warm this morning. District 20.” The person who posted it, he says is a Houston Firefighter.
“Underneath, later in the comments, he posted about how tender the brisket must be. As I said, it’s adding insult to injury. In a matter of minutes, my family lost everything. And for this firefighter to be a representative of the city of Houston Fire Department and to post something like that was just out of line, uncalled for, unnecessary, and downright rude,” added Mickey.
Mickey said he and other family members reached out to the firefighter on Facebook.
He said the firefighter has since apologized and taken down the post.
Mickey doesn’t want this to happen again and he wants the fire department to make sure it doesn’t.
“This is much bigger than just him because if he’s doing things like this, how many are? At no point was it ever a matter of ‘we want him fired or we want him reprimanded.’ We want him to understand that you need to take into account people’s feelings and consideration of what they’re going through and the tragedy they are going through,” said Mickey.
We reached out to the Houston Fire Department and asked about this post on their social media policy, their spokesperson said they have received our request and are working on it.
We also reached out to the firefighter on Facebook to get his take on this post, but so far he has not responded.
