Fire Dept. Probes Sex Harassment Charges

The Los Angeles Fire Department is investigating charges that women firefighters and paramedics have been sexually harassed while on duty and allegations that male members of the department have viewed sexually explicit films in firehouses.

Battalion Chief Dean E. Cathey said Tuesday that a team of department investigators--four captains and a battalion chief--have uncovered “some evidence” that sexual harassment “may have occurred” at Fire Station 5 in Westchester and possibly at other stations.

The team prepared a 40-page draft report on their investigation for consideration by Fire Chief Donald O. Manning and the Fire Commission.

Cathey, the department’s community liaison officer, said that after the report was discussed with the city attorney’s office, Manning decided not to release the names of those involved.

He declined to say how many members of the department are subjects of the investigation.

“No one has been charged yet,” Cathey said.

Allegations that “objectionable,” sexually oriented material has been viewed at Station 5, at 6621 Manchester Ave., surfaced after two May meetings of women firefighters and paramedics to discuss fetal embryo vulnerability.

Fire Commissioner Ann Reiss Lane, who attended the meetings for the department’s 17 women firefighters and the three dozen women paramedics, said that subsequent inquiries also led to other sexual harassment charges, which she declined to discuss.

“My concern is that it gets cleared up,” she said Tuesday. “I’ve been personally telling the world that we’ve been hiring women without problems.”

Fire Commission President James E. Blancarte deferred comment.

While no one in authority would talk about the specifics of the investigation, reports of what happened circulated fairly widely.

Sources who asked not to be named told The Times that a sexual harassment incident at Fire Station 5 earlier this year involved a veteran male firefighter and a female firefighter in the final weeks of her one-year entry probation period.

According to authoritative accounts, the woman firefighter was lifting weights in an upstairs dormitory at the firehouse when the male firefighter--wearing no clothes--entered the room and said something about “helping” her.

Left the Room

When the woman objected, the man left the room, only to pop back in a few minutes later, again wearing no clothes. When it happened a third time, the woman firefighter broke off her workout and went downstairs.

The probationary firefighter fended off the male firefighter’s physical advances in another incident later, sources said.

Both firefighters involved in the incident have since been transferred from Station 5.

Investigators also are reported to have questioned members of two shifts at the fire station about the viewing of sexual material, described by some members of the department as both soft- and hard-core pornography.

The station also maintained a “book locker” that contained sexually explicit magazines, which has since been removed, sources said.