MILLVILLE, Del. - After a 2024 hate crime came to light, the Millville Volunteer Fire Company has made changes to its policies.
This comes after police say two former volunteer firefighters, Jay Droney and Jordan Hastings, chased a paid employee with a rope tied into a noose. Police say after the incident which took place in February 2024, verbal harassment continued. Both individuals are facing felony hate crimes.
The allegations outraged local racial justice organizations, however they applauded what they was the timely response by the fire company.
Gary Caunitis with the Millville Volunteer Fire Company says changes were made immediately after the victim came forward.
āWe consulted with a number of different organizations to help us reform our policies," Caunitis shared.
Caunitis could not show CoastTV what the training modules look like but says āwe've done harassment and discrimination, and then we did sexual harassment with two separate modules that they went through," Caunitis explained.
"Each one of those modules walks them through identifying what is harassment or discriminatory behavior. It walks them through what they should do when they find it," he continued.
This timeline provided by Caunitis shows what led to these updated policies.
On April 9, allegations came to light and the Millville Volunteer Fire Company launched an investigation.
On April 10, Droney and Hastings had their memberships permanently revoked.
On April 16, Delaware State Police announced they arrested Jay Droney and Jordan Hastings and charged them with felony hate crimes.
On April 18, the fire company offered new anti harassment and anti discrimination training.
On May 6, changes were made to the company bylaws reinforcing anti-discrimination and harassment. This was passed and enacted according to Caunitis. Changes to company policies, giving more latitude to the board for dealing with behavior unbecoming of a member expeditiously.
On May 7, sexual harassment training was offered.
On May 21, Gary Caunitis and Greg Hocker, president of the Millville Volunteer Fire Company, attended a town hall hosted by Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice. Caunitis served as a panelist.
According to Caunitis, by June 1, 100 percent of the career staff, and ā of the volunteer members completed training. He says he expects 100 percent compliance by September 30. He shared it takes longer for volunteer members to complete the training because they are not at the station as often as caree employees.
Caunitis says the swift changes were made in hopes to avoid having a similar situation happen again in the future.
āPublic trust is a huge part of what we do. You have to know that when you have an emergency, we're coming and you have to know that we're going to treat every single person that needs our services with absolute urgency and respect," said Caunitis.
He says two new changes are key to handling these issues swiftly.
āOne is giving the board the latitude to work a little bit faster for particularly egregious incidents. The second is giving people more avenues and mechanisms to report when they see any sort of discriminatory or harassing behavior.ā
Caunitis tells CoastTV the fire company will push forward after some reputation damage by remaining who they have always been, public servants.
Both Droney and Hastings have waived up to Superior Court but court dates have not been set. Hastings waived up just about three weeks before Droney did.