Firefighter quits amid outcry

Minutes after a Spokane firefighter resigned Wednesday for photographing sex acts with a 16-year-old girl in a city firehouse, Fire Chief Bobby Williams revealed that the fireman had accessed an adults-only Internet sex site 22 times using a city computer.

Firefighter Daniel W. Ross also used his personal computer on duty at his regular fire station to post “pornographic images of himself” to the Internet in recent months, the fire chief said at a City Hall press conference.

“This is a matter that incensed the community and those of us in the Fire Department,” Williams said.

Ross, an 11-year veteran of the department and father of a 3-week-old daughter, quit his $63,769-a-year job just four hours after a coalition of women’s groups gathered outside City Hall and demanded his resignation.

It was the latest escalation in growing public outrage over the incident.

“I am resigning my position on the Spokane Fire Department on March 8, 2006,” Ross said in his one-sentence resignation letter after receiving a half-inch thick stack of city documents that were to be used at a disciplinary hearing today.

The 35-year-old firefighter declined through his private attorney to speak with reporters.

Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession, appearing at the press conference with the fire chief, said he is contemplating putting filters on city-owned computers to prevent the city’s 2,000 employees from accessing sexually explicit Web sites.

“We are looking at ways to preclude access to inappropriate sites,” said Hession, appointed mayor three months ago after Jim West was recalled from office by 65 percent of the voters, in part for violating the city’s computer policies.

Ross has been on paid administrative leave since Feb. 10 when his encounter with the teenage girl initially was reported to police as a rape. The incident occurred at the Indian Trail Fire Station, No. 17, in northwest Spokane where Ross was on fill-in duty. He regularly was assigned to Fire Station No. 13 at Wellesley and Jefferson, also on the North Side.

The Fire Department’s internal investigation wasn’t begun until March 1, after the county prosecutor’s office declined to bring any criminal charge against Ross.

The Police Department is conducting its own internal affairs investigation that could lead to disciplinary action against a detective and his sergeant supervisor who made the decision to delete sexually explicit photos Ross took of himself and the girl.

The mayor and fire chief said the public needs to understand that because the firefighter was protected by Civil Service and union grievance procedures, the city administrators couldn’t move more quickly than they did in bringing disciplinary action against Ross.

“It does not surprise me that he resigned,” Hession told reporters.

Williams said the Fire Department’s internal investigation of Ross showed he used a city computer in his regular-duty firehouse to visit “AdultFriendFinders.com” 22 times within the last few months. The Web site offers free memberships and bills itself as the “world’s largest sex and swinger site.”

“We also understand from our investigation that he used his personal computer in the fire station to distribute pornographic images of himself,” Williams said at the press conference.

“We have no indication that this was anything but an isolated incident,” Williams said in response to reporters’ questions.

The chief said the investigation showed the two other firefighters on duty had no knowledge that Ross took the 16-year girl to the fire apparatus area in the 8,800-square-foot station and then engaged in sex with her in the furnace room on the second floor and took digital photos of the activity.

The chief wouldn’t say if fire apparatus was visible in the photos or describe them in detail.

“The pictures contain images of sexual activity between two individuals,” said the chief, who has not seen the photos but read descriptions of them in police reports.

“It was only those two individuals who were involved,” Williams said when asked if other third parties may have taken the photos.

The firefighter and the girl had not met before but had exchanged text messages, apparently using their private cell phones.

After being placed on paid leave, the firefighter hired attorney Christian Phelps.

“It was the best decision for him and his family,” Phelps said of Ross’ resignation. “He was painfully aware of the public outcry. At first, this seemed like a nonevent. The police declined to prosecute. But then it blossomed into this frenzy. He began to wonder, why subject yourself to this?”

Phelps said statements last week from Hession made it look likely that Ross would be terminated.

“We had discussions, and he wanted to cooperate with the process. But he decided on his own this week that it was the best thing to resign.”

Hours before the announcement that Ross had resigned, a women’s coalition that includes former Spokane Mayor Sheri Barnard called for his immediate firing.

At a press conference Wednesday morning on the steps of City Hall, the Spokane Women’s Coalition also called for a thorough investigation and the possible demotion or firing of the detectives who directed Ross to delete the photos of the girl.

The women’s press conference was held on International Women’s Day, hours before the coalition sponsored a two-hour celebration of progress in women’s rights.

City officials’ handling of the incident is a flashback to the days when “the good old boys’ network was the only game in town,” said Jet Tilley, a leader in the coalition.

“It is unfortunate that in the midst of our local celebration of women’s progress, women in Spokane are grappling with revelations of misconduct, indiscretion and possible criminal acts by city employees entrusted to protect,” Tilley said.

The public deserves more transparency from City Hall, Tilley said, noting that Hession called a press conference to report developments in the case last Thursday only after the city learned that The Spokesman-Review was planning the next day to identify the firefighter involved in the sexual encounter.

“The timing alone makes it difficult to know whose interests are being protected,” she said.

Linda Long, the coalition’s co-chairwoman, also assailed the detectives’ decision directing Ross to delete the photographs. “Destruction of evidence is a cover-up,” Long said.

In his press conference last week, Hession rejected any accusations of evidence-tampering by the police but called the decision to delete the photos “not the best investigative practice by our detectives.”

On Monday, Acting Police Chief Jim Nicks said Ross told Detective Sgt. Joe Peterson and sex crimes Detective Neil Gallion he didn’t know the girl was under 18 and said the detectives directed Ross to delete the digital images because they couldn’t allow him to continue to possess the sexually explicit photos – a violation of state law – after being told she was 16.

The women’s group also called on the city to better train its staff in the handling of sexual abuse allegations and said the Fire Department should clarify standards for the conduct of its employees in public firehouses.

“Is the Fire Department a brothel where we can have sleepovers?” snapped an angry Marion Moos, a longtime women’s rights activist in Spokane.

Judy Orr, whose husband George Orr is a retired Spokane Valley firefighter, attended the press conference. She said the community outrage over the firehouse incident is shared by many of her husband’s firefighting colleagues.