Author's Note: Gordon Graham here with some “Risky Ramblings” for your reading and consideration. It is an honor to have this piece (and others previously) appear on the pages of ‘Fire Nuggets,” and if you don’t know the involved Fire Nuggets players – Paul Schuller and Ted Corporandy – you need to make their acquaintance as both are class acts with noble goals regarding improving your quality of life as a firefighter – here in California and around America. For those of you that are unfamiliar with me, I am not a firefighter; but on the other side of the fence in the same playing field of public safety and law enforcement (now retired after thirty-three years) and now playing lawyer occasionally and spending a lot of time on my passion in life – the management of risk. And here you are in your high-risk profession, and I met Ted and Paul over the years and they invited me to do the occasional piece for this site ... so here we are.

I have been watching with horror the thousand-plus fires now going on in my state, California, and the excellent work being done by the women and men representing the fire service. And I am not just talking about the firefighters but also all of the support personnel (communicators, mechanics, administrative, supply, etc.) who are working with the firefighters in trying to get this annual mess under control once again. The good news is that you will ultimately prevail – hopefully without injury or loss of life. But as the title of this column implies, this is risky stuff; and occasionally there are nasty consequences involved in what you do.

As I scan the various fire-related sites available, I see the occasional event that did not go right; and as a result there are nasty consequences. Fire apparatuses occasionally get involved in collisions, and sadly their weight and speed usually results in a third party being hurt – like the Dallas rig that T-boned the No. 1 plaintiff lawyer (that is the lawyer who files lawsuits against others) in the state of Texas. I wonder how that one will pan out? Can I give you a hint? Just because they had their “lights and siren” activated does not protect them. My guess is that there was a policy in place that controlled behavior in this type of event, and my guess is the policies and procedures were not being followed by the apparatus operator or the person in the right front seat. And I see a similar event today in another city in Texas, and several other similar events around America. 

Sometimes, your vehicle operations end up with co-workers being hurt or worse – and I am reading another one, this time in New York where a young firefighter managed to flip a rig and eject a number (I believe it was a high number) of firefighters from the vehicle. That is not good. And if you want some facts, there are currently more than 20 people in your profession now under criminal indictment nationally for misconduct during vehicle operations. This is not good, but if you take a look at the “big picture,” with 1 million-plus firefighters in more than 30,000 fire departments around our great nation, the numbers are not unexpected. When you look at “individual cases,” however, they get very personal and can end up causing involved employees a lot of grief.

I am telling you all of this for a reason. The vast majority of the things the women and men of the fire service do across America are being done right, and when things go right, you keep yourself out of trouble. The analog to this is that occasionally things don’t go right, and when things go wrong, there can be significant consequences. These consequences include injuries, deaths, lawsuits, embarrassment, criminal filings and, of course, internal investigations.

I became a cop in 1973, and my department was one of about 600 law enforcement agencies in California. As a young cop going to law school, it was a natural that I became a “union rep.” So when a cop got in trouble, he (and it was all men back then) would have a representative during the investigative process. My department was actually a “vanguard” in this area, and many police departments had some very draconian approaches to internal investigations. Some of these “persecutions” turned into news stories, the legislature got involved, and law enforcement in California got the Peace Officer Bill of Rights in 1977. 

California was the first state to enact such a series of protections, and it has proven to be a good thing overall. In essence, the law requires that investigations be done properly – keeping in mind the rules of fairness and procedural due process and preventing bad (or stupid) supervisors and managers from misusing the investigative process. I loved the law as a union rep. I loved it years later as a supervisor doing some of these investigations. I loved the law as a lawyer: having a standardized approach to a complex process is a good thing and prevents problems in advance. I loved it as a manager in my department, as it prevented a lot of misconduct by “supervisors and managers” with a personal axe to grind; and it provided some consistency in approach to internal investigations. And I loved the law as a taxpayer: it prevented some of the supervisory/managerial misconduct that would ultimately end up costing the involved entity a lot of taxpayer money when employees rights were trampled. You can read all about the POBR in California Government Code 3303 et seq.

Fast-forward 30 years. You in the California fire service now have an equivalent series of laws designed to protect firefighter rights during internal investigations. Again, I will remind you that these investigations are few and far between, because the vast majority of things you do end up going right. But occasionally there will be “consequences,” and if a firefighter is the subject of an internal investigation, he or she now has a codified series of rights that cannot be violated. If they are violated there are consequences for violating the rights of said firefighter. Assembly Bill 220 became law on January 1, 2008, in California.

As a lawyer, I read a lot of the writings considered by the legislature prior to putting this law into place. And, FYI, this law was a long time in coming – with attempts at getting this into law going back some 20 or so years. Many people and groups were in favor of the law, and many people and groups were in opposition to the law. I had read the same “pros and cons” in advance of POBR, and many (most) of the fears that people had who were opposed to the law were never realized. I think that California is better off with POBR, and I am confident that over the years to come that the FFBOR will be of benefit to all the stakeholders impacted by this legislation.

So why am I rambling on this today? Well, you can have all the “policies and procedures” in place in any organization, but if they are not being followed, they have little value. For those of you who are chief officers, please make sure you are intimately familiar with AB 220 (or the investigative procedures in your state) and what it says and what it does not say. And make sure you give your “investigators” training on how to do their job correctly.

For those of you who will be conducting these rare internal investigations, make sure that you know the law – and reading it once does not mean you know it. Develop some “checklists,” and make sure you are following the law. Failure to follow the mandates of FFBOR can cause you a lot of grief, and some of this grief might mean personal liability. You don’t want or need that type of grief.

For those of you who will be “representing” members being investigated, make sure you know the law. Your union (both at the local level and the statewide level) has some training programs available for you and what your role is in the investigative process.

And for those of you who are the line firefighters who may be someday investigated, prevent the investigation by doing your job right up front. Know your policies and procedures, and follow those policies and procedures – not some of the time, not most of the time, but all of the time. And please take the time to think prior to doing something incredibly stupid that will cause the investigation to commence. Pay particular attention to the following areas: vehicle operations, use of intoxicants on and off duty, personal relationships, horseplay, harassment, bias, freelancing, and proper use of PPE. There are many other things that you need to be concerned with, but these are the ones I read at a disproportionately higher rate.

And for everyone who is a stakeholder here, let me go way out on a limb with this statement: the law does not go far enough! I was so proud of my department (California Highway Patrol) in 1977 when the law was brand new. The commissioner at that time, Glendon B. Craig – one of the greatest leaders ever in American law enforcement – had the foresight and the will to extend the benefits of POBR to all CHP employees – not just the uniforms, but everyone else in the employ of the California Highway Patrol. That took a ton of guts, but Commissioner Craig (later Sheriff Craig of Sacramento County) did the right thing there. Again, his actions at the time were widely criticized (including some very vitriolic criticism by his peers in law enforcement management), but in the long run, I think the CHP is much better off internally and externally by making the law apply to all employees. 

Back at the top of this piece, I mentioned all the other “employees” who allow things to get done right. I believe they need the same protections as the firefighters who are protected by FFBOR. I believe that was the right thing to do in 1977 within the CHP, and it is the right thing to do now inside the fire service. Fairness and equity are important components in achieving the greatest organization possible.