The variety of on and off-duty misconduct investigations of LA Metropolis Hearth Division firefighters elevated 71% between 2019 and 2021, and a brand new report says dozens of different circumstances are stalled as a result of the Division hasn’t been in a position to conduct sufficient administrative trials, referred to as Boards of Rights.
“This doubtlessly encourages members to commit misconduct, figuring out there may be an absence of accountability,” unbiased assessor Sue Stengel wrote in a report mentioned by the Board of Hearth Commissioners this week.
Stengel’s newest report says firefighters dealing with self-discipline for refusing the COVID vaccine or refusing to just accept extra work days had been essentially the most frequent allegations lately, and famous that seven sustained, or confirmed, home violence circumstances had been recorded in 2021, in contrast with solely a single sustained case between 2017 and 2019.
The report additionally confirmed that whereas the amount of misconduct circumstances has elevated in the previous couple of years, the variety of sustained accusations fell to 47 in 2021, or simply 7.3% of the general complaints, down from 12.6% of the general complaints in 2019, the final 12 months the same report was ready.
Stengel advised the Hearth Commissioners throughout a gathering Tuesday that along with the 70 identified circumstances awaiting Board of Rights hearings there have been doubtlessly dozens greater than could not be counted resulting from a quirk within the Hearth Division’s monitoring system for misconduct issues.
“The variety of circumstances ready to be heard by a Board of rights has disaster degree,” she stated, and advisable the Division discover methods to implement routine penalties and speed up hearings.
“If you happen to take 10 years to take care of an issue, who remembers what the issue was?,” Fee president Jimmie Woods-Grey stated throughout a dialogue of the listening to backlog.
“The corrections must be accomplished, I agree with you, in a extra swiftly method,” she stated.
