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He does not, however, have such faith in
Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz’ administration, the black council
members of Toledo City Council, The Toledo Fire and Rescue
Department and Chief Brian Byrd nor the local city and
county court systems, as he plainly stated on Friday.
“Where is the mayor? Where is Chief Byrd?
What are the five African-American councilmen doing on or
off the record to stop the ongoing racism in the Toledo Fire
Department? What are they doing to stop the racism in the
City of Toledo?”
Councilmen, however, for the most part, had
not been apprised of the situation until well after the
press conference on Friday according to Council members
Larry Sykes and Yvonne Harper who both spoke with The Truth
about the termination. Neithr knew anything about Adebisi’s
ongoing situation or the termination.
Adebisi, during the press conference,
recounted months of harassment by those in the top ranks of
TFD, particularly from Battalion Chief Matthew Brixey of the
Training Bureau. Repeatedly, said Adebisi, she was summoned
to Brixey’s office “to tell me I wasn’t going to do well.”
That was, she said, the sum of his admonitions. No advice
was forthcoming about how to succeed, only warnings, without
specifics.”
“I went up the chain of command to stop the
harassment,” she added. “It did not stop.”
Although Adebisi’s termination was a surprise
to her and her family because it occurred at the last
possible moment before graduation and was unsupported by any
concrete reasons, her complaints about the Toledo Fire and
Rescue Department’s treatment of her already had quite a
history.
On August 6, 2019, Adebisi, through her
spokesman Murry, filed a complaint with the Ohio Civil
Rights Commission alleging mistreatment that begun as early
as her hiring date.
A letter with supporting facts in the filing
read in part:
“Charging Party, African American Female, is
and has been continuously sexually harassed and racially
discriminated against by the City of Toledo and the Toledo
Fire & Rescue Department by white superios and
administrators since she was hired in February 2019. The
discrimination was so openly blatant that on March 24, 2019,
Charging Party along with three (3) other African Americans
filed with the City of Toledo Office of Diversity &
Inclusion allegations about the various racial practices and
including the hostile working environment experienced and
implemented against us.”
Part of that alleged harassment, said Murry
in last week’s press conference, was information “from a
ranking officer who told her that she was targeted because a
certain white candidate could not be hired” and that she had
taken a place that should have been his.
In addition to the city officials that Murry
and Adebisi took to task for their failure to prevent the
months-long pattern of harassment alleged in their filing,
Murry also assailed Toledo Firefighters Local 92 for the
union’s failure to represent the candidate.
“Local 92 was not going to represent her,”
said Murry even though trainees pay dues for the local to do
just that, he asserted. He noted that correspondence had
been submitted to the union in late July/early August
regarding the matter since the local had declined to
represent her in training.
Adebisi said that her commitment to
firefighting is only with the City of Toledo. That
commitment started during her childhood when a fire occurred
in her residence and, with the help of fire fighters, she
was able to save herself and a family member.
“Toledo Fire is personal,” she said. “I owe
it to the city to give back to what was given to me. This
isn’t just about me, I owe it to all those coming after and
in my class. This has to stop.”
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