A Times investigation has found the Los Angeles Fire Department almost never terminates firefighters, even those who have committed crimes or other types of egregious wrongdoing.
Results of an inquiry into a hit-and-run crash by an LAFD assistant chief show how discipline of any kind in the agency is uncommon — especially, critics say, for chief officers., then an assistant chief, after he was involved in a hit-and-run crash, LAFD and law enforcement records show.
On an April day last year, an LAFD captain noticed that a department cellphone was missing at Metro Fire Communications, as the downtown dispatch center is known. The phone was one of the older flip models available as a backup to firefighters in emergencies — and someone had been taking them from time to time without logging them out. The next day, the captain saw that the missing phone had been returned and needed to be charged.
The captain compared the times of the texts with images from a video camera filming the dispatch center parking lot. The camera captured Gabaldon driving out of the lot in his white pickup truck at 12:41 a.m., leaving his post without permission from his supervisor. He was seen in the video returning to the lot an hour to an hour and a half later. The captain informed his superiors and an internal investigation was launched.
Gabaldon was relieved of duty in October. In January, a Board of Rights made up of three LAFD battalion chiefs accepted his guilty plea to two administrative charges of using the department phone to solicit a prostitute and leaving his post. The board determined that his conduct violated three sections of the Fire Department’s rules and regulations.
The LAFD reported Gabaldon’s admission of soliciting a prostitute to the Los Angeles Police Department for a possible criminal investigation. Gabaldon said he was not charged. An LAPD spokesperson said it had no record of an arrest of Gabaldon, and the L.A. city attorney’s office confirmed that it had received no request from the LAPD to prosecute him.The Times asked Crowley if she agreed with the decision not to fire Gabaldon.
An internal complaint alleged that two firefighters, one of them a captain, made racist comments in a phone call, including, “Candidates should try a different department, and it’s too bad, we’re not hiring Mexicans right now. … Oh, I guess the candidates have to be black faces and paint their face black to pass the interview.” An inquiry sustained the allegation, but no punishment was imposed. The captain is Filipino and the firefighter is Latino, a department spokesperson said.
“Firefighters represent the Fire Department wherever they are, whether they are on duty or off duty,” Woods-Gray said. “You’re fighting the unions,” Glazier said of prospective changes in the policies. “They’re not the only problem, but they’re part of the problem.” He said another roadblock to reform is bureaucratic bungling within the Professional Standards Division.
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