Captain Christian Granucci, a 31-year veteran of the Los Angeles Fire Department (“LAFD”), posted a video on Telegram regarding “vaccine” mandates.  “If we do not take the vaccine, we have to be subjected to testing twice a week and if we refuse that – termination,” he said. He also accused the LAFD Union of being in “lockstep with total tyranny.”  Two days later, due to illiberal, anti-freedom activists on Twitter, Granucci was under investigation. 

The transcript is as follows:

My name is Christian Granucci. I’m a captain with the Los Angeles’s city fire department. I’m a 31-year veteran with this agency and I’m more than likely going to catch total grief from my administration from this. But I am done being silent on this matter and so are many of our members. And this is regarding the vaccine mandate by the city of Los Angeles for all city employees.

We saw this tyranny coming. We saw it coming across the pacific and a week and a half ago it landed in Honolulu, with the Honolulu fire department, and we watched a passionate plea from Captain Pelekai, literally in tears, being forced to resign because he chose not to take the vaccine. Forced to leave the department after faithfully serving it for years. Then it landed on our coast. It hit San Francisco, it hit San Francisco fire and we heard the stories up there. Our union representation stood by idly and played a wait and see, and sat on their hands.

Well now it’s here, in Los Angeles, and the mandate has come down from the mayor and the city council that we, all city employees including first responders, shall take the vaccine. If we do not take the vaccine, we have to be subjected to testing twice a week. If we refuse that – termination.

Again, I’m a 31-year veteran of this department. I have literally bled for this department. I used to love coming to work. I respected the administration of this department, at one point. I even respected our union leadership, and now they are lock step with total tyranny.

I want you to be clear on this – I want everyone to be clear on this – this is not about politics, this is not about left or right, this is not about red versus blue, this is not about republican versus democrat, this isn’t even about vaccinated versus unvaccinated. This is tyranny. This is about freedom of choice.

The department has said that we can seek medical exemptions if we so choose, if we can – that is a pie in the sky. We can even try and seek some kind of religious exemption but they know that they have end runs around those. The vaccinations will come and then after that it will be a booster and another booster and another booster. And when will this end? When will this tyranny stop? I’ll tell you where it’s going to stop. It’s going to stop right here, right now!

And I’m putting my administration and my union on blast! You had the opportunity to get in front of this and you didn’t. We want to give you the opportunity to do the right thing and represent the membership. You’d think that the union that’s there fighting for the little guy would jump in front of this and this would have all kinds of handles on it for you to grab and run this in for a touchdown. But no, you decided to play politics with this. And you have half this department, you have a split right down the middle, and this is what tyrants want. They want to split down the middle. They want to divide and conquer. I am so hopping mad right now; you have no idea, my head could pop.

Again, we want to give our union the opportunity to step in front of this and do the right thing. But know this, there is a large group of us, in the hundreds, and we have an attorney on retainer and he is a shark. We’ll give you the opportunity to stand up and take the fiery arrows from the adversary of tyranny and step in front of this and fight for us. But if you don’t – our plan “B” a large group, and it is growing by the day – we have him on retainer and we will seek legal counsel and we will take the fight to you the city of Los Angeles.

Again, I’m gonna catch so much grief for this but I don’t care. I wouldn’t be able to look at my wife, she’s gonna kill me, I wouldn’t be able to look at my wife, though. and my sons in the eye as they grew up under total tyrannical law and rule when I had a chance to stop this, I had a chance to fight, but I did nothing. This is bigger than me, this is bigger than the Los Angeles’ city fire department, this is bigger than my union.

I don’t recognise this place anymore. I don’t recognise this country. I don’t recognise this state. I don’t recognise this department anymore.

Again, I want you to be very clear – I want everyone to be very clear on this – this is not a political issue, this is not left-right, this is not democrat-republican, this is not vax-unvaxx. This is a fight for freedom of choice, free will. This is a fight against tyranny. Make no bones about it, we have an uphill battle, a sizable financial commitment from several hundred of our members.

I don’t want to be doing this at the end of my career. I’d love to do a few more years on this department and just fade off into the sunset. But you know what? Damn, this just landed in our lap and we got to do something. We can’t sit back and let this happen, let this happen to our country.

I’ll leave you with this, and I saw this online a couple days ago. It was a gym owner in Oceanside, California, and like so many businesses here in California they have just been knuckled under. He was speaking in front of his city council and he pointed at them and he said “you told us – like the country’s administration told us, and you our city government told us – just give us two weeks to flatten the curve. And this has gone from two weeks to flatten the curve, to show me your papers.”

We all see what’s happening here. I can’t sit idly by anymore. If things have moved that fast in the last 18 months, where the hell will we be in the next 18 months?

God bless all the first responders out there. You need to turn around and put your union on check and have them fight for you. And if they don’t, you take the battle to them any way you can and you assemble all the numbers that you can, as many people as you can, you take the fight to them. We outnumber them!

I’m out.