Altering of LAFD reports alleged

Two Los Angeles Fire Department officials who led internal inquiries into a pair of now high-profile racial discrimination lawsuits say reports submitted to a top commander were altered.

They say documents that stand in their place as the department’s official conclusions were not prepared with their consent and that their names were signed on them by someone else.

Battalion Chief Millage Peaks and Capt. Armando Hogan said in recent interviews that the reports were sent to Deputy Chief Andrew Fox, who commands the Bureau of Operations and oversees department discipline.

Peaks said he did not discover the alteration of two of his three reports until he was shown copies while being questioned in one of the lawsuits. Because of the pending litigation, Hogan would not say how he saw the changes in the report with his name.

Fox declined to comment Tuesday for the same reason.

The disclosures by the veteran officers raise questions about the integrity of the cases involving black firefighters Tennie Pierce and Brenda Lee. Their lawsuits have highlighted long-standing allegations of racism and sexism and helped prompt the recent resignation of Fire Chief William Bamattre.

The reports are key pieces of evidence in the two lawsuits.

Peaks supervised the inquiry into the 2004 case of Pierce, who complained to officials after a Latino and two white firefighters one evening slipped dog food into his firehouse spaghetti

Two reports to Fox with Peaks’ purported signature -- dated Feb. 23, 2005 -- proposed suspensions of 25 days and 30 days, respectively, for two captains who supervised the firehouse where the Pierce incident occurred, according to copies of the confidential records reviewed by The Times.

Peaks said he realized that the signatures on the reports were not his when shown the documents while testifying in a deposition last July.

In his interview with The Times, Peaks said that in the reports he sent to Fox he may also have urged penalties in excess of 30 days, which would have triggered a more formal investigation by a Board of Rights panel. But Peaks added that he can’t say for sure what he proposed because he does not know what became of those original records.

“It was grave,” he said of the incident. “I could have made the recommendation to the operations commander for a more severe penalty.”

Hogan, meanwhile, was one of two captains ordered to investigate allegations that Lee had verbally and physically assaulted another firefighter during a dispute while the two were fighting a 2003 brush fire. Lee denied the accusations and alleged in her subsequent lawsuit that she was subjected to “improper and unwarranted disciplinary action” and forced out of the force because she is black and a lesbian.

The final Oct. 14, 2004, investigation report to Fox, which appears to contain the signatures of Hogan and the other captain, said that a “preponderance of the evidence” showed that Lee shouted at the other firefighter and struck him with her fists, according to a copy obtained by The Times. The findings were based largely on secondhand statements from two firefighters who were not present but said they had heard about the incident from the alleged victim.

Asked generally about using secondhand evidence, Fox said discipline probes “rely on factual information that can be validated and verified.”

Hogan declined to discuss the findings when shown a copy of the report, citing Lee’s pending trial in the spring. But he told The Times that the report was written without his knowledge and that his name was signed without his authorization.

“That is not my signature,” said Hogan, who also is president of the Stentorians, an organization representing black firefighters in the department.

The records shed light on an internal discipline system that a recent city audit found to be plagued by “pervasive and systemic” problems including shoddy recordkeeping, uneven investigation standards and arbitrary penalties that make it difficult to measure the extent of racial and sexual harassment in the 3,900-member department.

Under department rules, all personnel are required to “make truthful and accurate records or reports.” Peaks and other officers say it is not unusual for a firefighter to sign a report for a colleague, but only if that person has read the documents and consents to his name being signed. Fox said an example would be when a firefighter has been transferred.

In March 2005, a week or so after writing his reports in the Pierce case, Peaks said, he ended his stint at headquarters as executive officer for Fox’s Operations Bureau. Peaks went on vacation and returned to overseeing a Westside battalion.

Peaks said he had forgotten about his reports until he was summoned to give a deposition in the Pierce lawsuit. Peaks was asked to identify three reports with his signatures -- two for the captains and one for another firefighter who was found to have laced Pierce’s meal with dog food. He then testified that the reports for the captains had been rewritten and signed by someone else.

“Until I was deposed,” Peaks said in an interview, “I had no idea those reports were changed or why.”

He said that if his superiors had wanted the records rewritten, they could have called him to department headquarters.

Peaks said that if the Pierce suit goes to trial and he is asked about his reports, he will testify that they were altered without his knowledge. “Everything I’m telling you,” he told a reporter, “I would say in a court of law.”

The incident with firefighter Lee took place Oct. 27, 2003.

Hogan was assigned with another captain, Norm Greengard, to investigate the alleged attack by Lee. Hogan worked at a South Los Angeles firehouse.

Hogan said he saw the final report for the first time several months ago and raised a concern with his superiors about his purported signature, saying he had not even known that a report existed. A copy of the report shows Greengard’s name and signature and the initials “NG” next to where Hogan’s name is signed.

Greengard could not be reached for comment

The report states that a department explorer and apparatus engineer were present when Lee allegedly assaulted the firefighter.

But neither of the two witnesses saw Lee strike the firefighter, the report said.

In the end, the report based its findings on an interview with the firefighter who said he was assaulted by Lee and the statements of the two other firefighters who said they had heard about the attack from the alleged victim.

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robert.lopez@latimes.com