.Don’t Stand So Close to Me

As a veteran Oakland fire lieutenant faces molestation charges, the OFD's past willingness to hire ex-cons has come back to haunt it.

As police reports tell the story, it was the night of Saturday, June 29, and Lieutenant Delmont Waqia, a nineteen-year veteran of the Oakland Fire Department, had invited his grandkids to spend the night after a party at his North Oakland home. A preteen granddaughter asked if she could sleep upstairs on his bed — as she had before — instead of downstairs with everyone else. When Waqia agreed, the others asked to sleep upstairs too, but he said no.

Taking her customary spot at the foot of his bed, the girl fell asleep while her grandfather was still in the bathroom. She woke, police allege, to find him kissing her face and rubbing her crotch. Startled and confused, she went to the bathroom and then returned to the bed. At that point, her grandfather pulled her pants down and began to penetrate her, allegedly stating, “I won’t hurt you. You’re just a baby.” The girl pushed him away and ran downstairs to sleep with her siblings.

Word got back to the girl’s mother, who called the cops. On July 11, Waqia was arrested and charged with molestation; a pretrial hearing is scheduled for this week in Alameda County Superior Court. The fire department, meanwhile, has put him on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation.

While the lieutenant steadfastly maintains his innocence, few in the fire department appear willing to rally on his behalf. Given the firefighter’s past history with the department, in fact, some of his colleagues weren’t surprised by the allegations.

Indeed, if the department is embarrassed by the charges, it may have only itself to blame. Fire officials knew when they hired Waqia that he was a twice-convicted felon. What’s more, female firefighters serving under the lieutenant’s command have previously complained to higher-ups that their boss had engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior that in some cases bordered on sexual assault. As a result of one woman’s charges, the lieutenant was demoted, but was eventually returned to his management role over the women’s strong objections.

Citing personnel privacy issues, current Chief Gerald Simon would not comment on Waqia’s history. But reviews of records and interviews with numerous sources close to the department, including current and former Oakland firefighters and Waqia’s accusers, have revealed some of those details.

Firefighters, like police officers, are in a position of public trust. They are authorized to enter homes and buildings unattended in an emergency and are the folks people turn to in times of desperation. But unlike cops, Oakland firefighters are not required to be free of a rap sheet. According to California Professional Firefighters, the state firefighters’ union, there are no restrictions to prevent cities from hiring firefighters with criminal records; each department makes its own policy. “Having a felony in itself is not a disqualification,” says Dan Farrell, OFD’s deputy chief of operations; the bigger issue is usually whether an applicant lies about his past.

An independent background check is mandatory, Farrell says, and any applicant determined to be dishonest about prior convictions is seen as untrustworthy and would probably not get hired. According to Chief Simon, no one with a felony conviction has been hired during his three-year tenure.

But things were done differently back in 1983, when Waqia was hired. The department, insiders say, was trying hard to diversify its ranks at the time. Then-Chief Sam Golden seemed determined to create a force more reflective of Oakland’s complexion — almost at any cost, some say.

As a result, the OFD now has a more balanced workforce, but in its rush to diversify, sources say, the department hired a number of candidates that OFD screeners had rejected. All of them except for Waqia and one other firefighter were later fired.

A former Oakland fire captain who at one time was responsible for screening new applicants recalls one candidate who had lied about his educational background; the applicant failed to mention that he had flunked out of a local private high school after his freshman year and had never completed his degree.

The former captain says he was ordered to complete the background check nonetheless. In doing so, he says, he contacted four employment references provided by the applicant, all of whom said they wouldn’t hire the man again. His superiors, the ex-captain says, disregarded his recommendations and hired the man anyway, prompting the captain to quit his job as an applicant screener. Six months later, the new hire was arrested for using a fake prescription to purchase drugs while in uniform and was fired as a result.

Waqia, born Delmont Owens in 1952, was hired despite two prior felony convictions — one for burglary in 1971 and another for robbery in 1973, according to court documents. “They knew he was a convicted felon, but they wanted to fill a quota,” says one firefighter. “Background investigators told the chief not to hire this man and they did anyway.”

The state firefighters’ union is generally opposed to hiring felons. “Firefighters hold themselves and each other to the highest standards,” says spokesman Carroll Wills. “It is a very team-oriented profession, and not a firefighter in the world is interested in having someone next to them that they can’t count on.”

Reached at home last week, Waqia says he’s not the man he was when convicted back in the 1970s. He found religion, he says, and chose a new surname from the Koran. “[Owens] was basically a different person,” Waqia says. “I don’t even remember most of those things.”

But it wasn’t the priors that irked his female colleagues. In 1992, he was promoted to lieutenant under Chief Lamont Ewell. The very next year, one of his subordinates filed a complaint with the department alleging that Waqia had “grabbed her breasts.”

Her charge was supported by four other firefighters who claimed the lieutenant had verbally or physically assaulted them. One woman alleged that Waqia had come into the dorm room where firefighters sleep and placed his hands on her breasts and between her legs, according to sources at the National Organization for Women’s Oakland/East Bay chapter, to which Waqia’s accusers later turned for support.

No one ever went to the cops until after the statutes of limitations had expired. “The fire department is a paramilitary organization,” says a veteran female firefighter who was not among the accusers. “Everything has to be done following the chain of command. Nowhere does it mention that you should bring criminal charges for criminal activity. We should have gone to the police.”

Pressure to fit into the OFD boys’ club, the women say, kept them from speaking about the harassment, which according to a city arbitration report had been happening for two years. Their long silence made their charges seem less credible. That, and the fact that the alleged incidents always took place when no one else was around. It was a lieutenant’s word against theirs.

As for the lieutenant’s word, Waqia denies all the charges. “I never did, and never would, sexually harass anyone. The accusations made against me were untrue.” At the time, he says, “horseplay” between firefighters was common. It was not actually sexual in nature, he says. Much of it happened before he was made an officer, and both he and his accusers engaged in the behavior. “Some women would play because that’s what they liked to do, and some because they were trying to get along,” he says.

Female firefighters acknowledge that horseplay is part of firehouse life, but Waqia’s accusers say his behavior went beyond the fun stuff — the occasional tickling and ass-grabbing. One of them said she felt compelled to step forward because no one believed the original complainant, and because Waqia’s denials were enough to elicit serious doubt.

In response to the complaints, Waqia was demoted from lieutenant to firefighter. That wasn’t enough for his accusers, who still argue the city’s probe was inadequate. “It all goes back to the investigation,” says one of the women. “I believe if the investigation had been complete, the city would have fired him.”

Waqia protested his demotion and the case went before Oakland’s Civil Service Board, where the five women faced an aggressive defense lawyer. The firefighters say they were grilled about their age, weight, level of education, and whether or not they found themselves sexy, as if to suggest they were not attractive enough to invite harassment from men.

At the hearing, dozens came forward to support Waqia, says one of his accusers. By contrast, the women found themselves shunned by colleagues. “Some thought we were lying,” says the woman, “and some thought we shouldn’t have said anything.”

The demotion was nonetheless upheld. But Waqia retook the lieutenant professional examination and passed in 1995, placing him fifth on the department’s promotion list — the original disciplinary measure did not prevent his reapplying for his former position.

He was passed over for promotion that year by Chief Ewell, and again during the next wave of hiring in 1997 under Chief John Baker. After the second rejection, however, Waqia took his case to the local fire union, which backed him, arguing that the chief’s actions were a form of double jeopardy.

His accusers, meanwhile, turned to the National Organization for Women for help in blocking the promotion. “Their complaint was that he had assaulted them and was being considered for repromotion, which would put him in a supervisory position over them,” says Barbara Ellis, then NOW’s local co-coordinator.

During the resulting arbitration, says one female firefighter, “the city and the department — instead of waging a defense to say the chief has the right and responsibility to choose who to promote based on past activities — rolled over.”

Over the women’s objections, Waqia was promoted to lieutenant with twenty months’ back pay. “By the graces of God and my discipline and determination, and innocence of the charges against me, I was propelled to requalify myself and reposition myself,” he says.

OFD brass made a verbal concession to the women, which Waqia’s accusers say the department refused to put in writing. “The women were told they wouldn’t have to work under his supervision, ever,” says Ellis, “but ‘ever’ didn’t last long.”

The department did take steps to keep them apart, but after a problematic incident earlier this year in which Waqia was assigned to work with one of the women, their superiors ordered everyone, in essence, to just get along. The women say they received a letter to that effect. They again turned to NOW to complain about the impending change, and had a meeting slated for this month to discuss the matter. But Waqia’s arrest relegated it to the back burner.

Waqia’s role as a supervisor will no longer be at issue if the lieutenant is found guilty of molesting his granddaughter. But the fire department’s culture and hiring policies, and the process by which both the department and the city handle these kinds of complaints, will continue to be. Supporters of the complainants hope the department will learn something from this most recent embarrassment. “I keep asking myself: If these women who went through this had an avenue for their complaints, would this little girl be in this situation?” says a female firefighter. “I don’t know the answer.”

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