Orange County Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Stephen Davis was fired for disobeying a coronavirus vaccine mandate order he claims was unlawful.

A department spokesperson confirmed in an email that Davis is no longer an employee as of Tuesday, “terminated on the grounds of failure to follow a direct order.”

A fire union representative sent Spectrum News a letter Davis sent to employees. In the letter, Davis says he addressed his concerns with his superiors, but was told to reprimand the workers anyway. He ultimately chose not to do so and was fired.

Orange County Fire Lt. Jose Cotti, who rose in the ranks alongside Davis over the years, said Davis was given a list of employees to reprimand for not following the county’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. But he said Davis claimed to have found a number of people on the list who had already been vaccinated.

In the letter, Davis also said he found the names of people "which I knew from personal conversation who had requested a Religious Exemption."

“Those are these employees that complied and they were going to be written up, for why?” Cottti said. “For complying? It didn’t make sense. He understood that that was an error.”

Cotti called his friend’s firing egregious and argues it violates the union’s current impact bargaining.

“He wants to be proven right,” Cotti told News 13. “That what he was doing was right and was in the best interest of the department, and ultimately those he was going to write up.”

Mayor Jerry Demings has said getting county employees vaccinated is especially important because they interact and serve the public so directly. He has said those employees who don’t get vaccinated against COVID-19 would receive a written reprimand.

Davis also alleged in his letter that the administration later decided all written reprimands were to be stopped and returned. A spokesperson for Orange County Fire Rescue told News 13 that allegation is false.

The mayor’s office had no comment on Davis’s termination and his claims of being unjustly fired. 

Orange County Fire Rescue released the following statement on Davis’s termination:

“As of October 19, Stephen Davis is no longer an employee at Orange County Fire Rescue. Mr. Davis was terminated on the grounds of failure to follow a direct order. The insubordination was the result of his refusal to issue disciplinary action on October 5, 2021. Davis was hired in April of 2007 and promoted to Battalion Chief in 2018.”

The letter Davis sent to employees is below.