FL captains fight back: One accused of driving rig impaired & other accused of not taking action
Michael D. Bates, Hernando Today:
Brooksville fire Captain William Kaplan, fired for failing to take appropriate steps after an off-duty captain took a fire truck out for a ride, said the incident could have been avoided with better communication and more update department policies.
Captain Sam Schey, who drove the fire truck April 6 and resigned later that month, said Thursday that both he and Kaplan have gotten “bad raps” and disputes an internal investigator’s report that paints him out to have been intoxicated and made “inappropriate contact” with a female firefighter.
Kaplan has filed a grievance with the city to get his job back with lost pay. Schey said he was forced to resign and now wants his job back and may seek legal counsel to do so
“If you didn’t know that about Sammy, you could easily mistake him as being impaired,” Kaplan said. “Not everyone knew that.”
He provided the Times with an email to department supervisors dated June 13, 2013, that indicated Schey took a prescribed medication for a medical condition and it often made him tired. Kaplan further noted that he had seen Schey take department vehicles off the property on other occasions, and assumed that he had gotten permission to do so that night.
Investigators noted in the summary that a lack of updated and current departmental procedures, plus a “loose and open” policy regarding fire station visits by off-duty personnel and family members, played a role in the incident, and that some department vehicles were parked in nonsecured areas where anyone could climb in and start them.
