In the firehouse, things are so simple as black and white
Complaint over exam rescoring splits Bridgeport's bravest along racial lines

By Michael P. Mayko
ConnPost STAFF WRITER
Updated: 05/12/2009 10:39:41 PM EDT

In the firehouse, things are so simple as black and white - Topix

As dusk turns to darkness, the frequency of wailing sirens from emergency vehicles increases on Stratford Avenue, the main thoroughfare into minority Bridgeport.

But Craig Kelly doesn't need the flashing strobe lights piercing through the windows of the East End Community Council to rekindle memories of firefighting.

He recalls the good days.

Like the time 22 years ago when Kelly, a big man who stands 6-foot-3 and would look more comfortable chasing down quarterbacks on a football field, completed a running jump over a pit of jagged steel and crushed cement to help pull out two L'Ambiance building collapse victims from the wreckage.

And there were the bad days.

Like a rookie assignment of cleaning the firehouse kitchen, only to be summoned back after pranksters dirtied it up again.

Or preparing to resuscitate an unconscious man only to be chased away by his wife.

"She pointed to me and told me she didn't want me touching her husband. I'm thinking she doesn't care much for the guy. But an officer tells me to go downstairs," Kelly recalled. "What he should have said was 'Ma'am, he's a member of the fire services. He's trained to do everything possible to save your husband's life.' "

Then there was the day Kelly, exhausted after battling a stubborn fire, tumbled onto a firehouse bed and plunged into a deep sleep. That quickly ended with an officer shaking him awake instructing him to use "the black bed."

Kelly, who rose to the rank of lieutenant before retiring in 2004 with 27 years of fire service, is black.

Once again in 2009, as has been the case over the last 30 years, the fire department finds itself caught up in a black and white thing.

This time it's the 2007 lieutenant's promotional exam. Twelve white firefighters are suing the city in federal court for regrading the test because not enough minorities passed. Under the complex rules of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, when minorities fail to pass a test in certain proportions it's called disparate impact.

But the 12 whites, 10 of whom were knocked out of a chance to fill the 36 expected vacancies over the next two years, call it "reverse discrimination."

"The rescoring knocked me off the eligibility list," said one white candidate who, realizing any comment could fan flames of racial tension, asked that his name not be used. "What the city did is an injustice. They set up the rules and then they changed them after the fact -- that's not right."

The white firefighter had hopes of retiring in a few years on a lieutenant's pension.

"That's not going to happen now," he concedes.

Kelly maintains the oral test that involves quickly answering questions fired from the testing panel "is tougher" and more pertinent than selecting a multiple choice or true/false answer, as the written test requires.

"They might give you two or three minutes to respond to a scenario," Kelly, now president of the Greater Bridgeport NAACP, said of the oral test. "Believe me, you're standing there sweating as they try to lure you into second-guessing your answer."

But in a society still factionalized by black and white, not everyone believes the rescoring was fair.

Associate City Attorney John Mitola said the city did what the law allows it to do to eliminate claims of disparate impact. Today, whites greatly outnumber minorities in the upper ranks. Out of 59 lieutenants in the department, 43 are white, nine are black and seven are Hispanic.

Karen Torre, a New Haven lawyer who specializes in employment discrimination matters -- particularly those involving police and firefighters -- doesn't agree with Mitola.

"What's going on in Bridgeport is ridiculous," said Torre, who has no role in the case. "They're using race as a factor in how they score examinations. That's not what Title VII says. No employment exam should be changed, scored or altered because of the race of test takers."

As Torre reads the law, in job-related examinations no one can be discriminated in favor or against because of race. "That means the results cannot be changed, altered or rescored because of race," said Torre. "Nothing supports what Bridgeport is doing, so they continue to get sued, the taxpayers continue to get soaked and morale in the police and fire departments continues to suffer."

So among the 305 firefighters -- of whom 186 are white males, five white females, 56 Hispanic males, one Hispanic female, 52 black males, four black females and a male listed as an American Indian/Alaskan native -- how is morale?

Shane Porter, a lieutenant and head of the Bridgeport Firebirds, an organization of minority firefighters Kelly helped form, does not see a lot of open anger.

"From my perspective I think things are pretty calm," said Porter. "But I'm not naive. Are people angry about the revised scores? Probably. Are they talking about it in private conversations? Probably. It's human nature. But when the bell rings and we go out to a fire scene, a medical emergency or an auto accident, everybody puts aside their differences and works for the public good."

And the white firefighter?

"I'm disappointed. I'm upset," he said. "But I don't look at my co-workers or my superiors any differently. You can't. This job takes a special person to do it. We rely on each when we are out there. If we don't work together, somebody could get seriously hurt."