Marine engineer Lawrence Thomas at the main circuit panel of the San Francisco fireboat In 2019, marine engineer Lawrence Thomas and firefighter David Hawkins — two members of the minuscule cohort of Black people to ever work on the San Francisco fire boats, a group that could probably fit in a canoe — stood on the steps of San Francisco City Hall. Hawkins decried “illegalities percolating downward from an ever-corrupt Department of Human Resources,” and labeled its longtime director, Micki Callahan, “the ringmaster of corruption and dysfunction” in San Francisco. And, now, Hawkins is an ex -firefighter. Following this speech, the 52-year-old says he was never allowed to work a day on the fireboat again. Thomas, 44, says he hasn’t received a full shift on the boat since that day, either. In July 2020, Hawkins and Thomas sued the city for discrimination — and, notably, alleged strikingly casual corruption and dysfunction percolating downward from the Department of Human Resources. In September, the scandal broke. On Sept. 18, Callahan sent an email to virtually every city elected official with the gobsmacking subject line “Corruption at DHR…” This was so jarring that elected officials told me that they wondered if Callahan’s […]
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