Menu
🚒 Allegations Against Chief: Firefighters claim Chief Lanier used a racial slur and didn’t deny it when confronted.
📉 Department Shortfalls: Complaints include lack of training and unsafe staffing levels in the new department.
📂 Ongoing Investigation: City has sealed documents related to the case and confirmed the matter is still under review.
Editor’s note: we’ve included the racial slur for Black people in this article when it is used by someone we quote. When it is not quoted directly from an interview subject – we’ve opted to use the phrase “the N-word” instead.
The line trills after I tap in brand-new Valparaiso Fire Chief David Lanier’s 10-digit cell phone number. My heart rate ticks up a bit – after all, he’d probably be well within his rights to give me an earful about what I’m going to ask him – if it’s unfounded.
He picks up the phone. “Chief David Lanier, Valparaiso Fire Department,” he says courteously.
I explain who I am and why I’m calling. “I wanted to see if you’d be willing to comment on the accusations you’ve used racial slurs in front of your firemen,” I say with some nervousness.
There’s a pause on the line.
He tells me he’s going to have to refer the call to the Valparaiso City Commission Member responsible for the fire department, Tom Browning.
I thank him for his time and he hangs up.
A few hours later, I get my comprehensive records request back from the city put in last week. Aside from a few files concerning hotel room stays (more on that in a minute), the city says the files are sealed. “Pursuant to section 119.071(2)(k), Florida Statutes, some of the records you have requested relate to an active investigation of alleged employee misconduct and are therefore exempt from public disclosure at this time. These records will be made available once the investigation is no longer active, in accordance with Florida law.”
I’d emailed Commissioner Browning, who took over as fire commissioner when Ed Cox resigned a couple of months ago, about the situation. But, I had the happy accident of running into Browning as he was leaving a Sewer Board meeting at Niceville City Hall on Wednesday. He explained to me that the situation was under investigation and, with a weary look, told me that the investigation precluded him from discussing the situation with me at all.
So, with a record request that acknowledges an ongoing investigation, polite declinations for an interview on the issue with Commissioner Browning due to an active investigation, and a fire chief who referred me to the said city commissioner – this is the information we have so far.
The Valparaiso Fire Department is just a couple of months old, but they already have issues.
Two firefighters, David Rodriguez and Larry Hudson, II, told me in interviews that they have filed formal complaints about Chief Lanier, effectively the second fire chief the department has had since it became independent in March. They accuse him directly of regularly using a racial slur that targets Black people.
These same firefighters also claim that the department’s leadership fails to provide them with adequate training and is chronically understaffed.
Here’s what we’ve found out in our investigation of the claims:
Firefighter David Rodriguez has served as a civilian firefighter for two years. Before that, he separated from the army after a four-year commitment and started a job as a firefighter with the Niceville Fire Department out of fire school. He stayed with the Valparaiso Fire Department after the split between the two earlier this year.
He says he’s of Dominican origin, which means that when he claims he heard the Valparaiso Fire Chief David Lanier use the “N-word with a hard ‘r'” for the first time, he was stunned.
He says that it wasn’t the last time he heard it from his fire chief – and that others heard it too.
Rodriguez provided multiple text messages between him and other firefighters about the incident.
“‘Does the word nigger bother you?’ Who asks that kinda shit” one of Rodriguez’s colleagues ask him over text messages her provided to us.
“Bunch of weirdos,” Rodriguez responds in the text thread.
“I still can’t get over that,” Ropdriguez’s co-worker replies to him.
Another firefighter writes to Rodriguez, according to text messages he showed us, “I still can’t believe Lanier said nigger to you.”
In a group message between Rodriguez and five other firefighters at the department, Rodriguez asks the group, “Has anyone in this group chat heard David Lanier say the word “ni***r before ?” Yes or no?
Three other firefighters respond that they have. “Yes, but he caught himself; however, Trey and Scott [other Valparaiso Firefighters] also heard him before.”
“Yes,” said Larry Hudson, another firefighter we spoke with about this issue.
“Yes, he said it just Friday with Jake and Keegan there,” said another.
But Rodriguez and Hudson’s concerns about the fire department go further than the racist language they say Lanier regularly uses.
In fact, it goes back to the beginning of the department under Charlie Franks, who was shown the door over policy differences with city leadership.
On our call to discuss the situation, Rodriguez told me that he nor any of the other six firefighters has not trained with the fire department since the department took over for Niceville Fire Department earlier this year.
He claims Lanier told him and Hudson that it was “too hot” to train outside.
“He doesn’t want us to train. He says it’s too hot. But I keep thinking to myself, I’m like, ‘but the fire doesn’t give a shit if it’s too hot, we’re still gonna have fires. We should become acclimated to the heat so we can work in the heat, not wait till we have a fire and figure out we’re not acclimated to it because we didn’t train,'” Hudson recounted in his interview.
We requested training logs but did not receive them by the time of this article’s deadline to publish. Should the city give them to us – we will update this part of the story.
David Rodriguez called me on June 21, a couple of days after our initial interview. I didn’t pick up – I had the kids. He followed with a lengthy text message that appeared to have been created by voice-to-text.
“I just responded to a vehicle accident by myself driving the truck,” The message started. “I’ve driven the truck less than 10 times and only once with lights and sirens and felt extremely unsafe to do so.”
During our conversation the previous week, Rodriguez mentioned his concerns about staffing at the firehouse. The new Valparaiso Fire Department is a hybrid one. They have nine full-time firefighter billets, as well as part-time and volunteer positions.
Rodriguez claims the department has a total of seven firefighters, two short, and has a hard time filling part-time slots too.
Hudson quoted two National Fire Protection Standards for safety – one of them requires four-person teams on fire trucks. With three shifts – Valparaiso has roughly 2.3 firefighters available full-time.
Earlier this year, the Valparaiso Firehouse was remediated for Black Mold to the tune of $100,000 for the city – a massive cost for a city, which has the second-highest tax rate of any city in Okaloosa County, which balances its budget on reserves and just last year did not know how they would pay for fire protection unless Niceville taxpayers subsidized protection.
During remediation, the firefighters on their shift stayed at the Tru Hotel by Hilton in Niceville. When they received fire or emergency calls, they would have to leave their second-floor rooms, exit the hotel parking lot, and travel to their firehouse on Valparaiso Boulevard in Valparaiso to pick up their truck.
From there, the crew would have to respond to their emergency.
I asked how long it would take a firefighter to get from the door of their hotel room to the fire station.
“I clocked it,” Hudson said, “We did we did it with license sirens coming out of the second floor, we were at three minutes and some change.”
Hudson added, “We’re already behind the eight ball while we’re at the hotel… The way we responded from there was ridiculous.”
According to the NFPA, firefighters should be in their truck rolling out to an emergency call [called the turnout time] in 80 seconds.
On June 15, Fire Commissioner Tom Browning called a meeting that included Firefighters David Rodriguez and Larry Hudson – along with Deputy City Clerk Beth Millsaps, City Commissioner Clark “Tom” Browning, Fire Chief David Lanier and City Police Chief Joe Hart.
In this meeting – Rodriguez and Hudson laid out their complaints against Fire Chief Lanier.
They told the Valparaiso officials they claimed three issues with their chief:
In the meeting, which the firefighters did not record – the official record is unreleasable at this time according to the city – Hudson and Rodriguez say that Chief Lanier didn’t deny the use of the word – instead saying that “David Lanier didn’t even deny that he said it,” Hudson claims, “The Fire Commissioner [Browning] literally said ‘everybody said it,’ so he’s not gonna do anything about it.”
As of June 26, the investigation is still underway, according to Valparaiso officials.
Since the meeting, both Larry and David say that have filed harrassment paperwork with the City of Valparaiso Human Resources Department. Both say they’ve been interviewed by the Valparaiso Police Department.
Sources close to the Valparaiso Commission say that Commissioner Browning is pushing for a special meeting to discuss the situation.
Pro Communi Bono
