One of the largest whistleblower settlements in San Francisco history will be paid to a former firefighter who says he endured two decades of racial abuse and retaliation that began when he was a rookie at the fire academy.
Larry Jacobs, 60, who retired for medical reasons in 2023, recalled his long-running ordeal in a recent interview with NBC Bay Area after the city agreed to the $1.2 million settlement.
It was his second legal victory against the city. Jacobs previously sued the city over mistreatment he says he endured during his rookie training at the fire academy.
“It literally, for me, felt like a plantation,” said Jacobs, who joined the department in 2005 — eight years after a court order mandating minority hiring and promotions within the department had been lifted.
Jacobs said two fellow black trainees at the fire academy were soon subjected to racial abuse. When he was sidelined with a shoulder injury, he says, he was given a toothbrush and ordered to clean toilets. He was also ordered to be segregated from other recruits during meals at the training center on Treasure Island.
“One of the instructors there said: ‘Have the cleaning boy do it,’’’ Jacobs recalled, “and then another instructor, when I was walking, from behind, said, ‘look at this houseboy.’’’
Jacobs says despite the mistreatment, he was prepared to move on when he finished his training in 2008. But another incident of alleged verbal abuse — by a training commander – led him to write to the chief of the fire department.
“I can honestly say this: I only asked for an apology – and no one ever, ever talked to me,” Jacobs said. That’s when Jacob filed a formal employment discrimination complaint, followed by a racial discrimination suit in 2011.
After court filings cited a training supervisor’s account backing up Jacobs’ allegations of abuse, the city and the department settled the case in 2013 for $175,000. The department did not acknowledge wrongdoing but made assurances of fair treatment for all firefighters at the time, but Jacobs remembers being skeptical.
“I did everything by the book because I got the feeling — and no one ever said anything – but I just knew that,” he said. “I just felt that the command staff, and some of the people that ran the department, wasn’t happy with me.”
Those suspicions appeared to be confirmed, Jacobs said, when he was repeatedly passed over for a coveted spot in the arson detail. He says he was denied entry into the unit five times, over a decade.
That denial prompted a second suit, alleging whistleblower retaliation. Once again, Jacobs found support within the department. The then captain over the arson unit testified in court that a top commander had labeled Jacobs a troublemaker, based on his prior suit.
“We don’t need that kind of trouble here” in the arson unit, the commander allegedly said.
While Jacobs won his whistleblower suit in 2022, the city appealed for two years. After losing in appellate court, the city finally agreed to a $1.2 million payout earlier this year that the City Attorney’s Office calls “an appropriate resolution given the inherent costs of continued litigation.”
Despite the settlement, Jacobs’ lawyer Jane Brunner worries the fire department hasn’t learned its lesson.
“The department needs to be fixed,” she said. “You don’t fix a problem until you acknowledge a problem.”
The fire department referred questions about those allegations to the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, which had no further comment.
As for Jacobs, now retired, he acknowledges that it will take more than his whistleblower case victory to make real progress.
“Tradition, culture and history of the San Francisco Fire Department will not change unless the citizens of the city and county of San Francisco demand it,” he said. “Until that happens, it won’t happen… it won’t happen.”
Source: NBC Bay Area
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