Local & State Headlines

No evidence of racism in AFD incident

• Three fire officers are back at work after they were suspended with pay pending an investigation into alleged racism.

Barbara Rivera Holmes

ALBANY — Albany City Manager Al Lott said Tuesday that an investigation found no corroborating evidence of alleged racism stemming from a recent incident at the Albany Fire Department.

Lott told the Albany City Commission during its Tuesday-morning work session that the three fire department employees whose conduct had been evaluated in the investigation, conducted by Assistant City Manager for Public Services James Taylor, have returned to work.

Those employees, Battalion Chief James Sanders and Lts. T.R. Bridges and C.B. Nobles, had been suspended with pay following the March 14 incident in which relief driver Edward L. Taylor (no relation to James Taylor) said he was “visually harassed” after the firefighters allegedly discussed a noose.

“Ricky Marshall noticed a rope tied in a noose hanging on the day-room coat rack. He picked it up and commented, ‘What dumb a{asterisk}{asterisk} did this?’” Taylor wrote in an e-mail to Albany officials, including Fire Chief James Carswell and Lott. “While Marshall had the noose in his hand, Officer Tommy Bridges told him to show how a noose is supposed to look and explain to him how many loops are to be put in a noose. I was offended and felt ‘visually harassed.’ ”

In its in-house investigation, Lott said the city involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“We were in communication with the FBI,” he said, “and it was their opinion, as it is ours, that there is no evidence or grounds for a federal investigation today.”

The city manager has put in motion diversity and human relations training at the fire department. He also said that new city hires go through training that includes a session on EEOC and “what equates to a hostile work place, sexual harassment.”

“This is a traumatic experience for the department,” said Lott, who added that as a paramilitary team, firefighters trust each other with their lives. “I have faith, and I believe that our fire department will get through this and (that they) are OK.”

Lott added that the lack of supporting evidence “does not mean that it did not happen or that it does not exist, just that the investigation didn’t result in anything.”

But while the investigation may not have found evidence to support Edward Taylor’s allegations, the report does say that there “may be an endemic lack of sensitivity as it relates to diversity in the Fire Department.”

“We will look out for the rights of the alleged (and the accuser),” he said.

Edward Taylor is now out on medical leave.

More Headlines>>