Shake-up at Houston firehouse: Reports indicate two captains and firefighters transferred from Station 54 after controversial meeting.
See controversial letter that was read to Jane Draycott
Yesterday was Chief Phil Boriskie’s last day running the Houston Fire Department. He is heading for some retraining and then takes over as district chief at Station 78 in far west Houston.
Boriskie isn’t the only one making a move and getting some retraining. Two captains at Station 54 have been transferred. That’s the station where Boriskie attended a meeting between firefighters and returning firefighter Jane Draycott. That meeting apparently played a key role in Boriskie’s resignation as chief.
Here are excerpts from a Houston Chronicle article by Terri Langford:
Capt. Brian Williamson and Capt. Isidro Tamez were ordered transferred by acting Fire Chief Rick Flanagan.
“It is an administrative action for the betterment of the department,” HFD spokesman Pat Trahan said.
Both men will report to the Val Jahnke Training Academy on Monday for retraining.
Trahan declined to say whether the action, which moves Williamson to Station 53 and Tamez to Station 102, was a disciplinary move.
Jeff Caynon, president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, said four other firefighters have requested transfers.
Firefighter Jane Draycott tried to return to Station 54 on Jan. 13, six months after she said sexist and racist graffiti scrawled on the walls of the women’s dormitory drove her and her fellow firefighter Paula Keyes to leave.
On the day that Draycott was supposed to rejoin the crew at Station 54, Williamson conducted roll call, then, in front of command staff and Boriskie, began reading a prepared statement about why he and others did not want her to return.
Williamson urged Draycott to seek a transfer because, he said, no one at the station trusted her. For at least four hours, other crew members told Draycott why they did not want her to return. She called the incident demeaning and left. But not before informing the Station 54 crew that she would try to return after the city’s Office of Inspector General finished its investigation into the incident.
