CLEVELAND — WKYC cameras caught a Cleveland EMS employee making what could be interpreted as an inappropriate gesture while treating some of the students who had potentially been exposed to gummy bears laced with marijuana on Monday.
The city of Cleveland says it is reviewing the video -- and that the individual has been reassigned, which is standard procedure.
Here is the entire statement from the city:
The City of Cleveland was made aware this morning of video showing EMS responding to a Feb. 4 call at Anton Grdina Elementary School. The video appears to show an EMS worker demonstrating what appears to be an inappropriate gesture.
The incident has been referred to the Safety Director for review and the individual has been temporarily reassigned per standard procedure.
When the original story on the marijuana candy aired Monday night, the image of the gesture lasted one and one-fifteenths of a second. But keen-eyed viewers caught it, and complained.
Les on our WKYC Facebook page asked, "I happened to notice the paramedic making the controversial 'white power' sign...a white supremacy symbol. Did your staff notice?
The honest answer, Les: No we didn't.
"He is absolutely appalled that people think that he's doing something other than a game," said Paul Melhuish, president of the Cleveland Association of Rescue Employees, the union that represents Cleveland EMS employees, who spoke on behalf of the paramedic. WKYC is not identifying the paramedic, because the husband and father of young children fears for his family's safety. Melhuish said the paramedic has temporarily relocated his family to another home.
"At first we thought, this can't be happening, it's not that big of a deal. It's the circle game," said Melhuish.
According to the media outlet, Vice, the circle game is a prank that first surfaced in the 1970's and 1980's, and was later popularized by the show, Malcolm in the Middle in an episode that aired in November 2000. In it, the young boys explain how a person forming the "OK" sign below your waist, who makes another person look, allows the signer to punch the other person in the arm.
"He was just kidding around. He knew the cameras were there, and it was a photobomb," said Melhuish.
But according to the Anti-Defamation League, the "OK" sign was part of a 2017 hoax campaign on social media, to stand for "white power," because of how the fingers form a "W" and a "P."
While the gesture used in that context has been discredited as a hoax, the Southern Poverty Law Center says on its website, that because some white nationalists have begun to use the sign, people should be aware of the alternate meaning.
Melhuish tried to reason with people who expressed outrage over the paramedic's gesture.
"Think about it from a common sense perspective. Why would you sit there on a call like that, and sit there and make a racist symbol when you know the media is on you?" he said.
"It just doesn't make sense."