The South County Truth Spot has learned that last October, eleven Mehlville firefighters received threatening phone calls that were supposedly placed from Mehlville FPD headquarters. According to e-mails sent to administrators these MFPD employees "were terrorized" and "psychologically traumatized" by these telephone calls from "district officials".
When Chief Silvernail heard of this "harassment" he consulted with the Board and recommended that the matter be turned over to St. Louis County Police. MFPD's preliminary investigation revealed that the phone number that appeared on the eleven "harassed" employees caller ID's could not be used to to make outgoing voice calls since it is an incoming line only. This fact was also confirmed by AT&T technicians.
Sources close to the investigation tell us that all eleven of these employees filed police reports outlining the substance of these disturbing calls.
Last month, the police informed MFPD officials that they had tracked down the source of these calls after a seven month investigation that revealed that the alleged perpetrator was an employee of the MFPD. The police learned that the calls were made by using the Internet to forge the District's telephone number and disguise the true identity of the caller. St. Louis County Police informed MFPD officials that they had traced the IP address (Internet Protocol which identifies a computer's address and identity) and identified the source of these vicious calls as a Mehlville firefighter.
The Board of Directors placed the above-mentioned employee on suspension with pay, pending the conclusion of the investigation. According to our sources, the MFPD is conducting an internal investigation and will interview the eleven "traumatized" employees to establish the facts of the case.
We smell a rat here. When these calls were made last year, the Board and IAFF Local 1889 were embroiled in a legal battle related to the changes proposed by the Board to the District's pension plan and emotions were running high. We ask: Were these calls designed to create a situation where the Board could be blamed for harassing employees to improve Local 1889's position in the appeals court? We do not know. However, we intend to find out. We also ask: Now that the true source of these harassing phone calls have been discovered, with these eleven MFPD employees change their stories?
The South County Truth Spot has learned that Local 1889's NEW ATTORNEY, Rick Barry, is already maneuvering to obstruct the District's internal investigation by seeking a restraining order form the court. But why? If these eleven MFPD employees have filed truthful statements with St. Louis County Police what does Local 1889 have to fear from a follow-up investigation conducted by the District?
We remind these eleven "harassed" employees that filing a false police report is a crime. We urge Local 1889 and their fancy new attorney to stand down and let the MFPD interview the harassed eleven and produce a summary report that Local 1889 and the public can review. If these employees were truthful, they should have nothing to fear. However, if this was an elaborate scheme to stir up internal strife within the MFPD, and these eleven employees were willing accomplices, they should be immediately terminated. No employer would tolerate such harassment in the private sector and a local government entity like the MFPD should not either.
We will be watching....
