By Bill Johnson
Rocky Mountain News (Denver)
Copyright 2006 Denver Publishing Company
I figured going in that LaDon Williams wasn’t about to say anything the least bit controversial. Not now, and I couldn’t blame him.
Six years is but the blink of an eye in the rich history of a city. Yet if you are black and living in Denver and, heaven forbid, even thinking of becoming a firefighter here, it might as well be an eternity.
Six years, you see, is how long it has been since the Denver Fire Department last hired a black firefighter.
Six years.
Lawsuits have been threatened, words spoken. Nothing has happened.
If that doesn’t outrage you, hopefully it at least triggers a slight sense of unease in the name of fairness.
That LaDon Williams was even willing to talk nearly floored me, particularly knowing that he sits mere weeks away from possibly ending that long and embarrassing hiring drought.
He didn’t blink.
“It is what it is,” he said. “But I know I’m ready.”
He is 29 years old, a former manager turned ramp worker for United Airlines. On that basis alone he knows something of unfairness, long odds and hope.
“After three years of pay cuts, layoffs and turmoil, I decided I needed to protect my family and my sanity by taking a regular job on the ramp,” LaDon Williams said.
“I’ve been here 10 years. My pension is all but gone. There’s the craziness of the bankruptcy,” he said of his decision to apply for the firefighting job. “So I just figure I need to think of my future.”
For two years he has applied to be a firefighter. The second time may prove to be the charm.
He tested well, made the cut of 100 out of the 1,200 or so who applied, and currently is ranked No. 88, he said.
“It’s kind of funny, the way it works,” LaDon Williams said. “I scored 94.5550 out of 100, while my buddy, another black guy who has applied the last three years, scored 95.2867. And do you know, there are 22 people between us?”
He has been tested in reading and math, map-reading and mechanical aptitude. There were videotaped exercises of how he would react in certain situations, psychiatric evaluations and polygraph tests. The final test was physical agility, which he recently passed.
He could have been knocked out of the running after any one of those steps.
There are now, he said, eight African-Americans in the final 100, including his friend.
They are now awaiting the results of the background check, a step that he has been told will likely trim the finalists by a dozen or so. The survivors will then be placed on a eligible-for-hire roster.
Only 24 will enter into the November academy class.
It isn’t, having gone through the process, racism or some other nefarious reason blacks have not been hired in the past six years, LaDon Williams said.
Earlier, noncumulative testing procedures in which one bad score could knock you from the running probably accounts for some of it, he said.
“Yet to say not one black person over the last six years has been qualified,” he said softly, “well, that’s kind of hard to believe.”
What may doom him, he believes, are the extra points candidates receive for past firefighting, paramedic and military experience.
“When I started this time, there were at least 30 guys who were ex-military,” he said. “And you can get up to five points extra if you were in the military.”
He doesn’t blame the department. He has spoken with recruiters, the assistant chief and Chief Larry Trujillo in person.
“They are tearing their hair out trying to diversify the department, going out into the community holding open houses, doing everything they can. The decision of who gets hired is solely in the Civil Service Commission’s hands.”
When he was younger, he never thought about becoming a firefighter. In high school, he’d seen plenty of military recruiters, but never a firefighter. Especially a black one.
The quarterback on his old high school team, a white Denver firefighter, called him a couple of years ago.
A firefighter?
LaDon Williams dismissed the idea at first, but his friend persisted, describing the training provided by the department, the great schedule and benefits, “that it is an honorable job.”
What has motivated him the most, he said, is that his young daughter, knowing what he is trying to achieve, recently told him she, too, wants to be a firefighter.
“That one little thing told me I could make a big impact out in the community just by making it.”
He has since been on ride-alongs with fire crews, pulling nine-hour shifts. And he saw so much, he said.
“It’s rough on you, but it is very rewarding work, too. You are admired in the community.”
So he has hope.
The eight remaining African-Americans, he said, are all good candidates. The city, he believes, will see the result of their hard work over the next three years, forcing the current debate to subside.
I had one last question: What if he doesn’t make it this time out?
LaDon Williams did not hesitate.
“I’ll keep going until I make it, sir.”