Melissa Bailey Photo
Alomodovar: “Latinos used as guinea pigs, scapegoats, & patsies.”
The state Labor Department wants to find out if New Haven’s fire department has untrained bosses and whether a training mishap “endanger[ed] more than 200” lives.
The department’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health listed a total of 10 alleged health and safety violations in a notice it issued to the city this week.
Meanwhile, the chief has come under fire from the head of the Hispanic firefighters association, who accused department leadership of discriminatory treatment and using “Latinos as guinea pigs, scapegoats and patsies.” The accusations included a report that a firefighter couldn’t go to a Fair Haven blaze because he was in an “altered mental state.”
These are the latest bursts in a stream of controversies to deluge the department in just the past month. They include:
• Accusations from ten members of the command staff that an assistant chief improperly placed firefighters’ lives at risk at the Aug. 25 blaze that destroyed Delaney’s Restaurant and Tap Room in Westville.
• Wright’s decision to place the assistant chief, Pat Egan, on indefinite paid leave pending consideration of broader allegations of misconduct.
• Public calls by the NAACP and New Haven Firebirds, who represent black firefighters, for an independent investigation into Egan’s conduct and allegations of racial discrimination at the department.
• A vote by the fire union’s executive board to pursue an independent investigation into allegations that the union president personally tried to negotiate a six-figure pension deal while also negotiating a two-year extension of the firefighters’ contract with the city. The union president denied the charge, saying he raised the matter separately.
• A lawsuit filed against Chief Wright himself by a man who failed in his quest to become a firefighter; the suit charges that Wright retaliated against him because Wright had a romantic relationship with the man’s ex-girlfriend (also an aspiring firefighter). Wright Friday called the lawsuit “complete and total nonsense.” Asked if he had had the romantic relationship, he replied that based on legal advice, “I’m not going to say anything about a relationship or not a relationship.”
Thomas MacMillan Photo
In an interview Friday morning on the third floor of fire headquarters on Grand Avenue, Wright (pictured at his swearing-in), who was appointed earlier this year by Mayor Toni Harp, was asked about the seemingly never-ending controversies that have landed at his door.
He responded that he knew before taking the job that the fire department had internal problems.
“I took on the challenge,” he said. “I’m trying to straighten it out. I’m not throwing anybody under the bus.
“You’re always going to have problems. I’m dealing with the one step at a time.”
Firefighter In A Coma?
Wright is one of several targets of the allegations made in the state labor notice received by city Wednesday. The notice lists 10 alleged violations, including:
• “One new firefighter in training was in a coma after doing P.T. and two (2) more fell off a ladder … This endangers more than 200.” “PT” means physical training. The allegations refer to separate incidents that occurred this summer. One involved a firefighter who had a unrelated “medical issue,” according to two people familiar with the incident. The firefighter was hospitalized and treated; he returned to the class. The ladder incident did not involve significant injuries.
• “The Fire Chief and Assistant Fire Chief have taken their jobs and do not have the proper training to be in those positions. The Fire Chief is not a certified firefighter and has not had any training in more than 10 years.”
Another allegation cited the department for not using “incident command,” a reference to a National Incident Management System created nationally after 9/11. Over the last year, the department has started training firefighters in it.
Other allegations referred to the Delaney’s fire mishap; to firefighters working with expired EMT status; and “Lieutenants and Captains lack[ing] proper training,” among other problems.
Labor spokeswoman Nancy Steffens said Friday the division has launched an investigation into the allegations. She said at this point the department cannot disclose who filed the complaint.
Mayoral spokesman Laurence Grotheer said Sunday that the 10 allegations “are under review now by three city departments”: corporation counsel, the chief administrator’s office, and the fire department. Officials within the department said they have already begun working on some of the cited training issues over the past year under Chief Wright.
“Patsies”
Meanwhile, Wright confirmed Friday that he’s beginning to look into an allegation that a firefighter was ordered off a truck heading to a Fair Haven fire recently because of bizarre behavior. The chief said he had just learned of the allegation.
Wright first received word of the allegation in a Sept. 15 email from Antonio Almodovar, who heads the New Haven Hispanic Firefighters organization.
In the email, Almodovar alleged that the department has disproportionately disciplined Latino firefighters for minor offenses while ignoring more serious misbehavior by white firefighters. Among the incidents he cited were the Fair Haven incident as well as a case in which a Latino supervisor wrote up a white firefighter for insubordination but wasn’t disciplined. (He turns out to be the same firefighter who was involved in an after-midnight fight Friday with an owner of O’Toole’s bar on Orange Street.)
“I will not stand by and continue to see Latinos being used as guinea pigs, scapegoats and patsies any longer,” Almodovar wrote to the chief, in one of a series of messages between Sept. 12 and 15.
Black firefighters and the NAACP have made similar public accusations in recent weeks of racially disparate treatment of alleged misconduct.
In an interview with the Independent Friday, Almodovar elaborated on the Fair Haven incident. He said a call had come in to the Lombard Street station about a one-alarm fire on Saltonstall Avenue. An officer in charge noticed one of the firefighters “attempting to get on the wrong apparatus” while three others mounted the correct truck. “The officer told him to get on the right apparatus. He persisted in not following the instructions,” Almodovar said. “His mental state was definitely altered.”
The officer left the firefighter behind at the station, according to Almodovar.
“I’m trying to get somebody to give me some information” on it, Chief Wright said Friday. “I don’t know if he was drunk. I don’t know if he was on drugs,” or if some other factor caused the alleged bizarre behavior.
“Bad Judgment”
In his email to the chief, Almodovar contrasted what he called leniency toward white firefighters with the 15-day suspension of a Latino firefighter, Steve Ortiz, for refusing an order to write up a report on the Aug. 25 fire that destroyed Delaney’s Restaurant & Tap Room in Westville. Ortiz had declined to write the report because he said he hadn’t been on scene for the first few hours of the blaze.
Ortiz had expressed “remorse” for “bad judgment” and had never had any previous disciplinary problems, Almodovar argued, so he didn’t deserve a 15-day suspension. Especially when white firefighters have allegedly not received similar discipline. Almodovar said that he based some of the allegations on “rumors.”
“Antonio: I am the Chief of the Dept. I’m not going to let anyone disrespect me or any of my Officers including you,” Wright wrote back. “If I had let this go with just a slap on the wrist, I would be sending the wrong message. Not only did he refused my order, Inspector Ortiz refused the Acting Fire Marshal Faustino Lopez’s order twice prior to me. And of course he would come to me the next day in a very remorseful way.”
Wright subsequently wrote a second message: “I want to apologize to you also. I was texting to fast and meant to add to you not just the word YOU. I was making a statement that I wasn’t going to let anyone disrespect you. And as far as some of those rumours that you are speaken of. Some were at my discretion and some weren’t totally correct. And I feel your pain regarding how the Hispanic FF’s feel.”
The New Haven Fire Department had the reputation of being one of the best in the country. It no longer has that reputation. There were politics, nepotism and a lot of other bad things going on back in the day, but the quality of the service was never allowed to suffer due to upper management deficiencies. Sadly, that is no longer the case.
The vast majority of the firefighters are dedicated and very good at their job. This includes firefighters of all ethnic backgrounds. Lieutenants, captains and the newly promoted battalion chiefs are also for the most part very competent. The problem is the lack of direction exhibited by the past and present top command levels of the department. The former chief was an excellent firefighter and fire officer, but he stopped growing in vision and failed to guide the direction the department was going in many years ago. The department was allowed to lose experienced line and upper level supervision at an alarming rate. Replacements were not nurtured, mentored and allowed to gain experience. In effect, a void was created that it will take years to backfill.
New officers are desperately needed, but there are no tests scheduled. This department is at a crossroads. New leadership is urgently needed. The state is now getting involved, and very shortly it will direct and order the city to clean up this mess. The lives of the firefighters and the citizens of New Haven need to be protected from politicians looking to dispense patronage for votes. This department needs good leadership right now. Not more folks that are connected, but lack the required management skills.