The State - News from Jan. 15, 1988

After hearing testimony about a swastika placed in the office of two minority firefighters, a federal judge said Thursday that the San Francisco Fire Department is “out of control” and promised to hold top officials in contempt for future racial incidents. “There is neither the commitment, interest or ability in the department today to carry out this court’s order” forbidding discrimination, said U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel. She said Fire Department rules prohibiting specific acts of racial and sexual discrimination, harassment and slurs would be adopted as a court order binding on all officials at the rank of battalion chief or higher. The judge gave the department 10 days to clear all station houses of racially or sexually inflammatory material.