Hearing for EMT who recently filed whistle-blower suit ends abruptly
An administrative hearing for a fired Detroit Fire Department employee, who recently sued the city alleging he was retaliated against for information he had about the rumored party at the Manoogian Mansion, was abruptly halted today after his lawyer refused to stop recording the proceeding.
Attorney Norman Yatooma stormed out of Detroit Fire Headquarters this morning with his client Douglas Bayer and called the proceeding “an absolute circus.”
“There is no way that my client can receive due process in there,” Yatooma said. ”That was absolutely and positively a circus.”
Yatooma said he was tape-recording the hearing because its administrator, Deputy Fire Commissioner Seth Doyle, continuously told a stenographer to go on and off the record when Yatooma addressed the three-member panel.
Bayer, a former emergency medical technician, claims in a lawsuit he was harassed, threatened and eventually fired because he provided information to Michigan State Police about the unproven party.
Bayer, 40, of Monroe, told state police that he witnessed a disturbance in the fall of 2002 outside Detroit Receiving Hospital and was told by other EMT workers that the wife of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick assaulted a stripper, Tamara Greene, who danced at the rumored party.
He said in the whistle-blower’s lawsuit that he was denied access to the hospital with a wheelchair patient and that his supervisor Lt. Walter Godzwon came outside to take his patient in. He also said that he saw a group of people, possibly mayoral bodyguards, gathered in the hospital lobby.
According to fire department documents, Bayer was fired for taking heart monitoring cables equipment from an ambulance without authorization. Bayer said he was merely returning the equipment to Detroit Receiving Hospital hospital. He maintains the city fired him for what he told State Police regarding the party.
Today, Bayer’s former partner Fawn Colombatto said she was suspended without pay three weeks ago for being a co-conspirator in taking the equipment.
Under the administrative hearing procedures, a three member panel to hear the appeal has two members chosen by the city and one chose by Bayer.
Bayer chose Wisam Zeineh, the president of his union. But city officials said Zeineh should be removed from the panel because he could be a potential witness.
Zeineh said he stepped down as a witness after officials reminded him he is still a city employee.
“The whole process is unfair,” Zeineh said afterwards. “This is not due process.”
Earlier today, Detroit Fire Commissioner Tyrone Scott refused the media access to the hearing saying their presence would be a “disturbance.”
Scott then rejected a plea from a lawyer for the Detroit Free Press to open the hearing to the media. Brian Wassom, a lawyer for the Free Press who showed up at fire headquarters, was also prohibited by Scott from making an argument on the record.
Wassom argued that closing the hearing violated the state open meetings act.
A portion of the Fire Department’s General Rule regarding trial boards says: “Also remember your conduct and involvement is on public display; i.e., the newspaper reporters and authorized observers may be present.”
