The president of the city firefighters’ union last week confirmed that seven of his members will face some sort of discipline because of their alleged sex involvement with a female paramedic.
In a Friday news conference, Local 22 President Joe Schulle said that’s what he’s learned from a heavily redacted version of a city Inspector General’s report on its investigation of sexual misconduct within the Fire Department.
The men range in rank from battalion chief to firefighter, he said. Only one of the seven men is accused of having sex with the paramedic on Fire Department property, he said.
Why the others were investigated and are now subject to firing, demotion or suspension doesn’t jibe with a department fraternization policy, because there isn’t one, Schulle said.
“In the absence of a fraternization policy, having an adult consensual off-duty relationship is no business of the Fire Department,” Schulle said.
Schulle didn’t name the men, but they are two battalion chiefs, one captain, one lieutenant, a paramedic and two firefighters. Among the charges they face are violations of the department’s social media policy and “conduct unbecoming,” Schulle said.
The union president said Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Fighters will ask for a three-person administrative hearing to review the allegations and the punishments.
There’s much, much more to find out, Schulle said in a Friday evening phone interview.
Not only are parts of the report obviously edited out, whole sections of it are missing, he said.
“There is no legitimate reason why they won’t provide us with the whole report,” Schulle said during Friday’s press conference. “We can only speculate as to what they are covering up or they’re hiding. Our perception is there must be something in the report they won’t want us to see.”
The Philadelphia Daily News reported Saturday that the local will file a Right-to-Know request to get the Inspector General’s full report. The week before, a firefighter who asked not to be named said he thought the union would go after the report, but he expected it would take months to clear the legal hurdles to obtain it.
The Daily News also reported the union wants the complete Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint the female paramedic filed in the spring.
FIREHOUSE TALK
“Speculation” might be the best word to describe what’s been happening in the Philadelphia Fire Department at least since the middle of 2014. That’s when word of sexual misconduct allegations against firefighters of many ranks became widespread in the city’s firehouses. There also were rumors that there were smartphone photos of some of those liaisons.
In June, a firefighter who asked not to be named told a reporter that rumors of an investigation into the sexual misconduct were so well-circulated within the department that he expected to see news reports of it any day.
Instead, news stories surfaced only earlier this month that several Fire Department employees were about to be disciplined.
Asked about the investigation during the summer, one city official said it was expected to be lengthy and that it involved personnel records that are not open to the public.
Earlier this month, the nonpublic nature of the investigation was cited as a reason for not commenting by Mayor Michael Nutter’s spokesman, Mark McDonald, who a Fire Department spokesman said was handling press inquiries about the scandal. ••
