Denver’s minority firefighters will sue the city and file a federal complaint in the next several weeks over discriminatory hiring practices, representatives said Saturday.
The city has not hired enough blacks, Latinos, women and other minorities since the Civil Service Commission – charged with testing and hiring police and firefighters – changed its employment process in 2002, said Dale Chavez, president of Firefighters Incorporated for Racial Equality, or F.I.R.E.
The firefighters would join a group of 31 Latino Denver police officers who filed similar bias complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
Chavez wrote a letter June 9 outlining the group’s concerns to the mayor, the manager of safety and the Civil Service Commission.
“There is no racial bias problem when it comes to hiring in the department of safety,” said Al LaCabe, manager of safety. “I agree with both groups that we need to do everything that we can to increase the numbers.”
Prior to the drop in minority hiring, the Civil Service Commission used to hold a Saturday “cattle call” twice a year where thousands of applicants would show up and test for the Fire Department. Now applicants take a computerized test throughout the year.
From 1990 to 2000, 398 firefighters were hired by the city during the “cattle call” application process. Of those, 68 percent were white. Since the new computerized process began in 2002, not a single black firefighter has been hired.
However, the number of white firefighters hired increased by 11 percent.
The number of minorities hired also decreased since the change: Latinos by 13 percent, Asians by 1 percent and women by 3 percent.
Eleven percent of Denver residents are black, and about 30 percent are Latino.
The city is set to hire an equal-employment officer to investigate complaints of discrimination, retaliation and harassment, Deputy City Attorney Michelle Lucero said. An offer has been accepted, but a contract has not yet been solidified.
Lucero said the position will determine which complaints are worthy of investigation and what level of investigation is warranted.
Staff writer Christopher Osher contributed to this report.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-820-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com.
