By Bradley Olson and Terri Langford
The Houston Chronicle
HOUSTON — The Houston Police Department investigation into a July incident in which racist and sexist graffiti was scrawled all over the women’s dormitory in a northwest Houston fire station is under review by the FBI, Mayor Annise Parker said Wednesday.
Also Wednesday, the lead investigator in the city probe revealed that the two women who reported the incident are not suspects, contrary to rumors that developed when early aspects of the investigation became public last year.
Before his departure last month, former Police Chief Harold Hurtt asked the FBI to review the completed investigation, a decision that has delayed the release of the long-awaited investigation into an event that set the stage for the unexpected retirement this week of Houston Fire Department Chief Phil Boriskie.
Parker said she was “unhappy” the investigation has taken as long as it has and acknowledged that the lack of closure likely played a role in Boriskie’s decision to leave.
“I have been pushing the Office of Inspector General to get the final report to me, but I’m not going to rush any police work that needs to be done,” the mayor said. “This is about justice, after all.”
Last July 7, firefighters Jane Draycott and Paula Keyes arrived at Fire Station 54 to find racist and sexist slurs on the walls of their dormitory and their belongings. The two women had complained of harassment during the previous months.
Little has emerged publicly about the course of the investigation - and what did become public led to questions about whether either or both of the women staged the incident.
The two women were ordered to give polygraphs and handwriting samples almost immediately. It was months before any of the male firefighters were asked to do the same.
‘Frustrating’ protocol
Capt. David Watkins, who is managing the OIG investigation, said local government code requires that complainants against the Houston Fire Department be polygraphed before any firefighters who may be considered suspects. The law, he said, only applies to OIG investigations involving the Fire Department.
“That’s why it’s frustrating at my end,” said Watkins, who declined to comment on whether that mandate could hamper any investigation involving Fire Department personnel.
The information vacuum has produced wild rumors about the results of the polygraphs and the handwriting samples.
While Watkins would say that the two women are not suspects, he also noted the investigation is not finished.
“From the beginning, neither of the female firefighters was considered a suspect,” he said. “They are not considered to be suspects now.”
However, he added, because the investigation is not complete, anything could change.
“Until all the evidence is considered, we can’t say positively who or who is not a suspect,” Watkins said.
Joe Ahmad, an attorney representing Draycott, Keyes and other female firefighters, said his clients never accused a firefighter.
“We couldn’t accuse a firefighter because we didn’t know who did it, and we still don’t,” Ahmad said. “The notion that they can’t do an investigation until they do a polygraph is somewhat strange.”
An FBI spokeswoman confirmed that the bureau is assisting the city, but declined to elaborate.
City Council members Wednesday expressed frustration that the police investigation, conducted by the Office of Inspector General in HPD, has not been made public.
Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck suggested the city may need to conduct an additional outside probe of its own if the investigation is not released soon.
“I share in the frustration of everybody that’s interested in this case,” she said. “It’s time that we get an answer. It’s time to move on and time to deal with whoever was the perpetrator of this very sick act in the Fire Department.”
Letter released
Also on Wednesday, the Houston Fire Department released a letter read aloud by Station 54 Capt. Brian Williamson on Jan. 13. The reading of the letter in front of Draycott, then-Chief Phil Boriskie and his command staff, on the day of her scheduled return to Station 54 a week ago, prompted a quick admonishment from Parker about the way the situation was handled by HFD management. The public scolding may have hastened Boriskie’s sudden announcement on Tuesday that he would step down as chief but remain with the Fire Department.
In his 2½-page letter, Williamson airs accusations, publicly questions Draycott’s mental state and quickly informs all that no one at the station wanted her to return.
“The crew and I were told to accept Firefighter Draycott as if nothing had ever happened,” the letter begins. “However, as the captain of 54A, it is of my better judgment to be honest with the current situation at hand.”
The letter claims Draycott twice spoke to others of taking her own life at the fire station while on duty.
Draycott told the Chronicle a week ago that she never said such a thing. She did say that she once confided in another female co-worker about being depressed because of all the vitriolic backlash she has endured.
“With the current investigations taking place and not yet solved, I do not feel that it is in your safest interest or in the interest of the other firefighters to require you and another member to be alone, responding to calls, on particular apparatus,” Williamson wrote.
Attempts to reach Williamson were unsuccessful.
Williamson also aired how the women’s complaints have placed the Station 54 firefighters unfairly under a cloud of suspicion.
“These events / accusations have taken great tolls on the members’ professional careers as well as their personal lives,” the letter read.
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