Portland Fire & Rescue Chief Erin Janssens Grabbed Subordinate in Meeting

City won't release records regarding incident.

FIRE CHIEF ERIN JANSSENS

Portland Fire & Rescue Chief Erin Janssens is trying to put out a blaze in her own office.

The city Bureau of Human Resources last month completed an investigation into an allegation that Janssens grabbed a senior civilian fire bureau employee during a tense meeting in late 2013. Sources tell WW the complaint was substantiated. WW first reported the incident in today's Murmurs column.

Former fire bureau senior facilities supervisor Brian Alcid tells WW that Janssens grabbed him by the neck during a meeting about construction cost issues at Fire Station 21, which is located on the east bank of the Willamette River. 

"She put her hands around my neck and shook my head," Alcid says. "It was the strangest thing that ever happened to me."

Alcid says he wasn't injured, but there was a witness. Alcid says he avoided Janssens after the incident and retired in October 2014. 

Janssens tells WW she remembers the incident differently. She says she was reacting to Alcid, who she says went off-script in a meeting about cost issues related to a public art installation at Station 21. Janssens says she and Alcid and another Fire Bureau official met with a member of the Regional Arts and Culture Council to discuss the art component of the station renovation.

Janssens says her bureau's budget for the project was tight and she became frustrated when Alcid suggested in the meeting with RACC that the Fire Bureau might provide additional funds above those already allocated for the art project.

After the RACC official left, Janssens says she let Alcid know that in her view, he'd been out of line.

"I grabbed him on the top of the shoulders," she says. "I wasn't angry. I was bewildered. I was like, 'What were you thinking?'"

Janssens says she'd known Alcid for 25 years prior to the incident and thought she had a positive relationship with him.

She says she did not choke him or shake him but after Alcid left, she realized immediately that what she did was wrong.


Janssens says she never spoke to Alcid about the incident because his supervisor told her it was not an issue. But late last year, a city investigator called Janssens in for an interview to discuss what happened.

"I've never done anything like it before and I won't do it again," Janssens says. "I regret it. And I apologize."

City Commissioner Dan Saltzman and the city attorney's office have refused WW's request to release public records outlining the city's investigation of the incident.

WWeek 2015

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