By Bill Bryan and Jake Wagman
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Copyright 2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
ST. LOUIS — The police department’s intelligence unit is looking into allegations that two fire department officials used academy recruits to perform personal work for them, such as cleaning up debris at rental property, officials said.
Police say they were asked by someone at City Hall to review the claims and don’t yet know whether criminal conduct was involved.
The city public safety director, Sam Simon, who oversees the fire department, said Wednesday, “All I know is that the general nature of the allegation that we received is they were using recruits in training for some outside purpose.”
Simon would not elaborate on why the inquiry was turned over to police, whose job is to look for crime. “If they were doing it for some personal gain, that might be a factor to consider,” Simon said.
Fire Chief Sherman George said he was not involved in the investigation and did not know why it became a police matter.
“I don’t have any idea why,” George said. “I didn’t ask for this investigation.”