By Tanya Eiserer
The Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2006 THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Desmond Luster was a poor student in firefighter school: He ranked last at the academy, had the lowest score on his midterm and flunked another test he had to pass to get his emergency medical technician certification. Yet he scored the highest grade in the class on his final exam.
Investigators say that Mr. Luster cheated, and that Lt. James Hunter, a recruit instructor, helped him do it. Lt. Hunter denies helping Mr. Luster cheat but says cheating is a widespread problem at the Dallas Fire-Rescue academy and on promotional exams.
“Cheating has been going on since I’ve been on the fire department,” said Lt. Hunter, who was disciplined and transferred to regular duties at a fire station in May. “This is not just something that’s a rarity. In the time that I’ve been here, it’s happened numerous times.”
Mr. Luster, who quit the department, could not be reached for comment.
The decision to suspend Lt. Hunter for three days angered many rank-and-file firefighters who feel the punishment was too light.
Firefighters say cheating has continued for years.
“This kind of stuff’s been going on for a while,” said Billy Ingram, past president of the Dallas Black Fire Fighters Association and a recruiter for the department. He said that in the early ‘80s, a number of rookies were fired after they stole an academy exam.
But the head of the department’s largest firefighter association and many firefighters say Chief Eddie Burns’ punishment decision is especially disappointing because they hoped the department was about to turn a corner with a new chief. Chief Burns started work in April.
“The perception is that Chief Burns has damaged the integrity of the department and that discipline is not going to be uniformly applied,” said Capt. Mike Buehler, president of the Dallas Fire Fighters Association, which represents more than 1,000 of Dallas Fire-Rescue’s roughly 1,600 firefighters. “By damaging our integrity, he damaged his own credibility.”
Chief Burns, who requested that The News submit written questions, wrote in an e-mail that Lt. Hunter “was disciplined based on the facts uncovered” in the probe.
“Captain Buehler ... represents one particular group of individuals, and he does not speak for the fire department,” the chief wrote.
Fast finish
Records obtained by The Dallas Morning News give an accounting of the chain of events surrounding the recent cheating scandal.
On the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 30, Lt. Margaret O’Connor printed a copy of the test with the answers on it and placed it on Lt. Hunter’s desk to review. He took the copy home.
Early the following Monday, she made copies of the test for about 20 recruits.
The two-hour test started at 9:10 a.m. Mr. Luster finished at 9:40 a.m. - 20 minutes before anyone else. Lt. O’Connor was surprised at how fast Mr. Luster, a struggling student, finished.
She noted that he didn’t do any calculations or make any marks on the test materials and that he only had one erasure on his answer sheet, records show.
Other recruits who were later interviewed by investigators also did not see him use his calculator, even though there were complex hydraulics questions on the test.
The red flags prompted a search of all recruit lockers. A notebook with the answers to 103 of the 125 questions was found in Mr. Luster’s locker. Many questions had also been jotted down, records show.
Mr. Luster told internal investigators that he wrote questions, or parts of questions, on scratch paper during the test. He said that after the test, he used his book and notes to re-create the exam on the notebook later found in his locker.
Using scratch paper was itself against the rules. But most who were there didn’t recall seeing Mr. Luster do any paperwork or studying after the exam. Internal investigators never found any scratch paper.
Lt. O’Connor noted in her internal affairs statement that Mr. Luster spent an average of 14.4 seconds on each question. “I taught many of the subjects and I don’t think I could have done that well so quickly,” she wrote.
Mr. Luster resigned from the department during the probe.
Lt. Hunter was questioned and given a polygraph test about the incident along with others at the academy. He said the polygraph examiner asked whether he provided test material to Mr. Luster. Lt. Hunter passed the polygraph test.
Study session
Months later, Mr. Luster called Maxie Bishop, then the department’s emergency medical service training coordinator, to complain about rumors that he had stolen the test.
He told Mr. Bishop that he and another recruit had been invited to Lt. Hunter’s home for a study session the weekend before they took the test.
Mr. Bishop told his boss, which prompted another internal inquiry, this time into Lt. Hunter’s actions. That probe began in late March and lasted less than two weeks.
Lt. Hunter denies showing the recruits a copy of the test he had at home or telling them specifically what would be on the test during their study session.
“I have no idea how he got the answers,” Lt. Hunter said in his interview with The Dallas Morning News. “One thing we know is he definitely got something from somewhere.”
Mr. Luster told investigators that Lt. Hunter pointed to specific paragraphs and sentences in textbooks, homework and work sheets that they needed to study. “His words were ‘Read it, study it, know it,’” he wrote.
He said he never saw the actual test before the exam day.
The other recruit at the study session, DeAlo Marilla, told investigators he did not get any answers from Lt. Hunter. He ranked toward the bottom of the class at graduation time, records show. Mr. Marilla declined to comment.
Both recruits told investigators that Lt. Hunter asked them to remove his number from their cellphones after the investigation into Mr. Luster’s score began, an allegation that Lt. Hunter denies.
“They all have our phone numbers,” Lt. Hunter told The News. “What purpose would I have to do that?”
Lt. Hunter said he didn’t disclose the study session sooner because no one asked him about it. “I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the study session,” he said.
He said recruits have easy access to the academy’s training coordinator office, where copies of tests are kept. “People walk in and out of that office,” he said.
3-day suspension
Investigators concluded that Lt. Hunter provided “certain and specific test material” on the final examination to Mr. Marilla and Mr. Luster. They also found that he violated rules that forbid fraternizing, showed favoritism and compromised the integrity of the training academy.
Chief Burns gave Lt. Hunter a three-day suspension on May 9. “These circumstances will forever question your integrity,” Chief Burns wrote in a May 8 letter ordering the suspension.
Lt. Hunter was subsequently transferred out of his academy position.
In Mr. Marilla’s case, investigators could not prove any wrongdoing. He remains with the department.
In the fallout, some firefighters have also ostracized Mr. Bishop for coming forward with what Mr. Luster told him. Mr. Bishop recently retired to take a job as the state’s EMS director.
Mr. Bishop could not be reached for comment.
Capt. Buehler and Lt. Hunter said the investigation left too many unanswered questions.
Lt. Hunter said racism lies behind the complaints about his punishment. Chief Burns, Mr. Luster and Lt. Hunter are black, as is Mr. Bishop. Capt. Buehler is white.
“They didn’t really want us to have this black chief,” said Lt. Hunter, parliamentarian of the black firefighters association. “They’re using this to try to throw darts at the new chief.”
Capt. Buehler said his organization doesn’t have any problem with having a black chief. “We do have a problem with any decision being made based solely on race,” he said.