A Fort Wayne fire department veteran served a 36-hour unpaid suspension for failing to respond to a call, Chief Pete Kelly announced Monday to the Fort Wayne Fire Merit Commission.
Capt. Gene Cowan, a 24-year member of the department, was ordered to serve the suspension for failure to respond to a call for service while working an education booth at IPFW’s RiverFest in June. An off-duty firefighter told Cowan a person was feeling “faint” at the event, but Cowan did not go to help the person, Kelly said.
Kelly said Cowan thought someone else was helping the person. This is the first disciplinary action Cowan has received, according to his personnel file.
At the Board of Public Safety meeting, board members learned from police Chief Rusty York that a Fort Wayne police veteran served a one-day unpaid suspension for being absent without leave.
Officer Jeffery Burkholder Sr., a 29-year veteran of the force, was suspended for not reporting to work because he mistook what day he scheduled off for vacation, York said. Since joining the force, Burkholder has been suspended two other times, both in the 1980s.
The board also reopened an employee appeal case involving officer Benjamin Sloan and of a police vehicle accident. It reduced a one-day unpaid suspension to a written reprimand. The board cited confusion over state law.
