Mayor Disputes Details of Reported Tirade

Compton Mayor Omar Bradley on Monday denied key details of witnesses’ accounts that he flew into a rage and shouted obscenities at instructors running a firefighter academy after they rejected his son’s tuition check.

Bradley issued a brief statement saying that he wanted to clarify and correct “misstatements and actions attributed to me” by city and county firefighters who prepared written accounts of the Sept. 6 incident. Witnesses said the mayor kicked open the door to a fire station office and disparaged county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.

“I did not kick down the door or cause any other physical damage to the fire academy,” Bradley said in the statement. “I did not make derogatory statements regarding Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke that were attributed to me in the news media. An investigation is underway on the matter. Until it is completed, no further statements from me would be appropriate.”

In written accounts prepared for Compton Fire Chief Milford Fonza, fire instructors and other officials described how a shirtless, irate mayor stormed into the fire station, kicked open an office door and exploded in an obscenity-laced tirade in which he demanded respect.

Several people present at the fire station said Bradley had yelled that he had instructed Compton police to stop Burke and subject her to searches. (Compton police officials said no such order exists.) Witnesses reached for comment Monday said they stood by their accounts.

“Anything I’ve written to the chief, I don’t retract,” a top fire official said Monday.