Racial slurs. Harassment. Are Black firefighters being pushed out of KC fire station?

Editor’s note: This editorial includes a quote containing a racial slur. The quote illustrates the severity of the discrimination described by firefighters.

On his first day at Kansas City Fire Station 10, the doughnuts Eric Sanders purchased for his fellow firefighters were dumped in the trash. White firefighters refused to eat the food that Sanders prepared and forbade him to sit with them during meals.

The racism that Sanders, who is Black, encountered was unrelenting, he said. The n-word was prevalent and used in casual conversation.

An internal investigation found that Sanders had been harassed and had repeatedly been subjected to racial slurs. Even then, the overt racism persisted, he said.

The treatment from his own colleagues was “pure hell,” Sanders said.

Fire Station 10, which sits in Kansas City’s urban core at Ninth Street and The Paseo, is one of the city’s busiest firehouses. It’s also widely known as one of the most segregated and hostile to Black firefighters.

As a new year-long investigation by Star news reporters has documented, the Kansas City Fire Department has for too long turned a blind eye to a racist and discriminatory culture that stymies the advancement of minorities and women and allows harassment and racially motivated maltreatment to go unchecked. While racial divisions are evident across the department, Station 10 is emblematic of the noxious environment that has taken hold.

Sanders and his attorney, Lynne Bratcher, detailed merciless racist attacks, unjust treatment and egregious unprofessionalism at Station 10.

“They wanted to make things miserable for me to leave that spot,” Sanders said.

A firefighter for 14 years, Sanders left Station 10 after less than a year.

He sued the department for harassment, race discrimination and retaliation. In 2014, a jury awarded Sanders almost $300,000 for retaliation but rejected his other claims.

An internal KCFD investigation revealed a troubling pattern of Black firefighters being harassed at Station 10. White firefighters at the station routinely used the n-word but were rarely disciplined, the investigation found.

White supervisors also frequently ridiculed Black firefighters in the presence of coworkers, Sanders said. A supervisor blasted Sanders’ job performance in front of his colleagues, an obvious violation of his privacy.

Even after Sanders filed suit, not much changed, he said.

“I wanted to retire with the Fire Department, but racism wouldn’t allow it,” said Sanders, who left the department in 2017. “It’s sad, but it’s true.”

In a deposition taken in connection with Sanders’ lawsuit, a white firefighter crudely explained the treatment of Black firefighters at Station 10.

The station’s crew “didn’t want niggers working there, and they thought that niggers were lazy,” the firefighter said.

Kansas City Fire Chief Donna Lake said the department takes seriously its responsibility to treat all employees fairly.

But the detailed account laid out by Sanders in court documents and more recent experiences recounted by other Black firefighters reveal systemic problems that demand urgent action.

Hostile environment, physical altercation

While Sanders’ lawsuit and the internal investigation brought some of the deep-seated issues at Station 10 into sharp relief, there is little evidence that substantive reforms followed.

Last year, Sean Tiller, a Black firefighter, filed a complaint after a physical altercation with colleague Joshua Alt, who is white.

Tiller reported that firefighters who had previously been assigned to that shift had warned him that the crew would be difficult to work with. Racism was rampant at Station 10, Tiller was told. Expect hostility from white fire personnel, he was advised.

Firefighters who had worked that shift said they left because the environment was hostile and toxic, Tiller wrote in a formal complaint.

“I accepted the position on that shift thinking it couldn’t be that bad … but I was wrong,” he wrote.

Offensive and degrading remarks were constants. As were jokes about Tiller’s race.

“I was told to take it on the chin and to stop being sensitive,” he wrote.

Eventually, Tiller couldn’t take the abuse — or the racism. He felt trapped, he wrote, and couldn’t report the incident to Dennis Barrett, his captain, because he was part of the problem.

On July 4, 2019, Alt and Tiller were involved in a physical altercation after trading barbs.

Alt punched Tiller in the face and bit him, Tiller reported.

“I never threw a punch,” Tiller wrote. “I just held him down.”

Tiller later received medical treatment for his injuries. The two eventually apologized to each other.

But after a hearing, Tiller was suspended a month without pay, while Alt was not disciplined. Did race play a role in that inequitable outcome?

When Alt was initially questioned about the incident, he had union representation. Tiller did not. Why? Tim Dupin, president of International Association of Firefighters Local 42, declined to comment.

Fire Department officials also declined to discuss the incident.

“All employees deserve dignity, respect and to not have the details of their employment record discussed by their employer in a public forum,” Lake said.

Tiller is still a firefighter but no longer works at Station 10. Alt remains there.

Retired Black fire chief: Environment ‘toxic’

While Kansas City is nearly 30% Black, the Fire Department is only 14% Black. The disparity is even more stark at Station 10, where, as of September, just two firefighters on the 33-person roster — or 6% — were Black. Four Latino firefighters are currently stationed there.

The Fire Department should represent the city, Lake has told The Star Editorial Board.

“I would like our department as a whole to reflect the community that we serve and our stations to reflect the neighborhoods in which they interact,” Lake said.

If that’s the goal — and it should be — the Kansas City Fire Department is falling woefully short.

Many minority firefighters say the racial makeup of Station 10 is no accident.

Retired Fire Captain Mike Daniels Sr., who is Black, worked at Station 10 for years. He now regrets not doing more to help younger Black firefighters navigate the rough terrain of a segregated fire department.

“The environment was toxic,” he said.

Tests for promotions were heavily biased against minority personnel, Daniels said. And so-called “trade” assignments from one station to another often went to family and close friends of white firefighters.

The bidding process to transfer was rigged against minority firefighters, Daniels said. That allowed Station 10 to continually maintain a mostly white roster.

‘A good ol’ boy network’

A white emergency medical technician with the Kansas City Fire Department once told investigators with the city’s Equal Employment Office that fellow firefighters simply didn’t want Black firefighters at Fire Station 10.

“It’s like going back to the 1950s or ‘60s when fire stations were segregated,” Bratcher, the attorney for Eric Sanders who has sued the department for discrimination multiple times, told The Star Editorial Board.

She currently represents Clinton Ragan, a Black firefighter who sued the department in 2018 for disparities in pay among white and Black firefighters.

She also represented Tarshish “T.J.” Jones, who successfully sued the department for discrimination. A jury found Jones, who is Black, was denied a promotion to captain six times due to race. He was awarded $356,000 in damages.

Unfortunately, segregation and racial bias aren’t limited to Station 10. The Kansas City Fire Department has a history of discriminatory practices, Bratcher said.

“It’s a good ol’ boy network,” Bratcher said. “It hurts people who are not white men.”

It’s also costing the city millions of taxpayer dollars.

In 2018, former Deputy Chief James Garrett, who is Black, settled a discrimination lawsuit for $111,000. He had been denied a promotion to fire chief.

In April, the City Council signed off on a $400,000 payment to settle a race discrimination and retaliation claim from Kevin Hunt, who was denied a promotion to deputy chief.

A long line of Kansas City Fire Department leaders bears responsibility for the racist culture that has festered for decades at Station 10 and beyond. So, too, do the city leaders who have oversight responsibility for the department and its budget.

Will Lake, the first female fire chief in Kansas City, take decisive action? Will Mayor Quinton Lucas and the Kansas City Council continue to throw good money after bad by paying to settle discrimination lawsuits — or will they finally demand significant reforms in the Fire Department?

What about newly-hired City Manager Brian Platt?

Inertia has been a powerful force in the Kansas City Fire Department. Those who have benefited from this discriminatory system have shown little inclination to change it. Questions about ingrained segregation and an apparent tolerance for structural racism have been greeted with a collective shrug and wishful thinking that perhaps these are just isolated incidents.

For too long, City Hall has been unwilling to challenge leaders in the Fire Department, which is often treated as untouchable when it comes to budget and policy decisions.

The hands-off approach must end now. City leaders and Fire Department brass must commit to a new culture, a more equitable structure and zero-tolerance for racist attacks and language.

And that work should begin now at Station 10.