Marion Barry and the DC Fire Department

Thanks to my late cousin David Levy, I knew the name Marion Barry long before I even thought of becoming a reporter. In the mid-1960s, when I was about 10-years-old, David was a lawyer who worked with Barry on a number of causes. They were even arrested together by DC police on what was then called a “move on” charge.

So, I already had heard many interesting Marion Barry stories by the early 1980s when I began working as a reporter for WTOP Radio and then Channel 9.  While my beat wasn’t DC politics and the District Building, my focus on the DC Fire Department and its many problems brought lots of occasions where the mayor stepped in to attempt damage control. On the news of Marion Barry’s passing I thought I would share a couple of stories about Barry’s relationship with DCFD.

The problems back then for DCFD where very similar to what the department faced under the current administration of Mayor Vincent Gray and his fire chief Kenneth Ellerbe (Ellerbe left during the summer after three years). These included a run down fleet, inadequate repair shop, staffing issues and a lack of confidence by the public in the department’s ability to handle EMS.

The big difference between then and now was that the city didn’t have much money in the 1980s and 90s. More recently the problems were created not by a shortage of funds, but by the political agendas of Gray, Ellerbe and public safety director Paul Quander. Not that there weren’t political motives at play in some of the neglect the fire department suffered under Barry.

By far, my favorite story of that era is the one you can watch at the top of this page. It involved what I believe to be among the strangest orders a fire chief has ever given to his firefighters. The incident was sometimes called  “Teddy’s Ice Capades”. “Teddy” was Theodore Coleman who was DCFD chief from 1983-1988. Chief Coleman passed away last month at age 87.

On Sunday, February 8, 1987, after driving by some firehouses in Southeast Washington following a snowstorm, Chief Coleman didn’t like what he saw. The chief gave the order for firefighters to pull out the shovels and get to work. Who can blame a fire chief for acting that way if the firehouse ramps and sidewalks were still snow covered?

The problem is they weren’t. All the walkways and aprons had been shoveled and were clean. What Chief Coleman didn’t like was that there was snow on the grass of these fire stations. Asked what to do with it, company officers were told by the chief to shovel it into the streets.

The firefighters not only obliged their chief, they were thoughtful enough to call me in order to get publicity for Chief Coleman’s firehouse beautification project.

Not long after videographer Sheldon Levy shot video of snow being shoveled into the streets, my phone rang again. This time a familiar voice on the other end said, “Dave, this is the mayor”.

Marion Barry had never called me before, so I was somewhat surprised. He really only had one question: “You’re not really going to run a silly story about firemen shoveling snow into the streets, are you?”

I answered, “Mr. Mayor what do you think? Of course I am, it’s a great story”.

The mayor paused for a minute. To his credit, Marion Barry knew I was right, so he didn’t even try to talk me out of the story. But he did tell me to make sure I got a photographer down to the firehouse on Pennsylvania Avenue in Southeast in the next half-hour. Not sure exactly what was up, I quickly sent Sheldon to rush over to Engine 19. Sheldon arrived to find firefighters and Mayor Marion Barry shoveling the snow out of the street and back onto the grass where it belonged.

Despite Barry’s really smart efforts to put this to bed Sunday night, the bizarre nature of the story was so intriguing that other news organizations were interested in it on Monday. As I recall, Barry and Chief Coleman already had an unrelated event scheduled at a Southeast fire house. There, the mayor not only defended his fire chief, but blamed the mess on the firefighters.

Fast forward almost a decade to Marion Barry’s last term as mayor. The fire chief was Otis Latin. This time the issue wasn’t something that you could easily blame on firefighters. The department’s infrastructure was crumbling. DC was broke and under the supervision of the Financial Control Board.

I had been doing many stories about firehouses where raw sewage was running freely and apparatus that was breaking down. There were days when there were only three ladder trucks available for the entire city. On one of those days I spotted one of the operating truck companies taking up from a house fire two blocks north of where Nationals Park is now located.  I have to admit I was shocked when I saw the tillerman climb onto the reserve rig and sit down on a hard plastic chair that looked like it had come from the firehouse kitchen.

In the video above, Mayor Barry tried to deal with some of these issues plaguing the department. The mayor had the news media meet him at the quarters of Engine 20 in Tenleytown. We got to see some of the dilapidated conditions of the firehouse and the apparatus, including Truck 12 (which was bad, but not as bad as the one missing the tiller seat). As you will see in the video, one reporter, thanks to a friendly firefighter, went off the guided tour a bit and found his way into the basement and discovered a problem Barry hadn’t mentioned. Need to keep an eye on those pesky reporters.

Don’t for a moment think that Marion Barry was only the figure who became the butt of jokes on the late night talk shows after his 1990 arrest. While there were a lot of flaws that made headlines, Barry, in his prime, was a fascinating and cunning political leader who always made covering news in Washington very interesting.