Paramedic fired over online comments about Charlie Kirk sues Polk City

A Polk City paramedic fired for her online comments about slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk is now suing the city for allegedly violating her First Amendment rights.

Alissa Furry’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, names as defendants Polk City; the city manager, Chelsea Huisman, and the city’s police chief, Jeremy Siepker.

According to the lawsuit, Furry’s performance reviews indicated she met or exceeded all expectations throughout her employment with the city as a state-licensed paramedic. In 2023, she received her first Lifesaving Award recognizing her work on a cardiac-arrest call, and in 2024, she was recognized with the Rookie of the Year Award and two additional Lifesaving Awards. In 2025, she was voted Medic of the Year by her peers and received a fourth Lifesaving Award.

The lawsuit alleges Furry never faced discipline from the city and that the city never raised any concerns about her job performance.

According to the lawsuit, Furry was off duty on Sept. 10, 2025, when she posted a message to her private Facebook account about that day’s shooting of Kirk.

The lawsuit alleges that in her post, Furry wrote: “Why I really don’t care that this guy died from gun violence. He was a bigoted prick, and according to his own words he died in an acceptable way. I have as much sympathy and empathy for him as that insurance CEO that was killed. I do care that two high school students were critically injured today due to gun violence at their school. Unfortunately, I’m seeing way more about this a–hole on my Facebook than I am the kids that were hurt.”

Furry’s post was in reference to Kirk’s public comments in April 2023 in which he said, “I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

The lawsuit claims that a former coworker of Furry’s immediately contacted her and advised her to be cautious about what she posted on social media. Within four minutes of posting the comment, Furry deleted it, the lawsuit alleges.

Later, while off-duty at home, she posted another comment to her private Facebook account that stated: “Meanwhile, all I’m seeing is people extolling the virtues of the guy that said empathy is fake and condoned deaths from gun violence as long as we get to keep the second amendment. And yet people who are out of empathy to care about him are the bad ones.”

Minutes later, the lawsuit states, Furry shared another post that consisted of a quote attributed to the 19th-century Irish poet Oscar Wilde, which read, “Some men improve the world only by leaving it,” and which included the caption, “I can choose to ‘not celebrate,’ but also not be sad.”

According to the lawsuit, Siepker, the Polk City police chief, called Polk City Fire Chief Karla Hogrefe on Sept. 11, 2025, to discuss the Facebook posts and to share that he had received complaints from city police officers about the posts.

On Sept. 16, 2025, the fire chief allegedly called Furry and informed her that she was being placed on administrative leave due to her social media posts while indicating she did not agree with the city’s decision but that her hands were tied.

The lawsuit claims that on Sept. 22, 2025, Huisman, the city manager, completed an internal investigation of the matter and recommended Furry be fired. On Oct. 24, 2025, the city issued its final decision in the matter and terminated Furry’s employment.

The lawsuit alleges Furry was fired because Huisman and Siepker disagreed with Furry’s opinions and that it is a “clearly established law that a public employer may not terminate an employee for speech made as a private citizen on a matter of public concern absent evidence that the speech meaningfully impaired discipline, workplace harmony, or operational efficiency.”

According to the lawsuit, other Polk City employees, all of whom are men, made “numerous political posts on social media, including derogatory remarks about political figures and jokes violating city policies, but received no discipline.”

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for First Amendment retaliation and also seeks an order that reinstates Furry to her position as a city firefighter and paramedic. The city has yet to file a response to the lawsuit. The Iowa Capital Dispatch was unable to reach Huisman and Siepker for comment.

Earlier this year, state Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, and state Sen. Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, signed a letter to the Iowa Board of Regents calling for the immediate firing of employees who, in their view, had “publicly celebrated” Kirk’s death.

Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, a Republican, took to Facebook to write that “teachers in Iowa (are) praising the assassination of Charlie Kirk.” Grassley wrote that he expected school districts to “investigate these posts and reprimand the posters appropriately,” adding that “if appropriate action is not taken, you can trust that the Iowa House Government Oversight Committee will address this issue and take action to root out this hate from our schools.”

In the days after Kirk’s death, a Creston school teacher, a state public defender, an Iowa State University employee, and an Oskaloosa school teacher were fired for comments they made in the aftermath of Kirk’s death.