Sac Metro Fire Restraining Order
Metro Fire furor goes to court
District acts against its board president after alleged threats.
By Andrew McIntosh - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, December 31, 2006
The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District has obtained a temporary restraining order against its own board president, Peter Engellenner, after employees said he threatened them with violence and dismissal during a racist and misogynistic tirade.
But at least one board member wonders whether the district's legal response was excessive.
The Sacramento Superior Court temporary restraining order against Engellenner, issued late Wednesday, capped a tumultuous month at the fire district's headquarters on Hurley Way.
Armed plainclothes Sacramento County sheriff's deputies and armed Metro Fire arson investigators have been protecting fearful employees subjected to the board president's alleged threats, including Adriene C. Edwards, a legal secretary, general counsel Richard Margarita and attorney Joseph Chavez.
Edwards has gone on stress leave since the threats were made, court documents show, after weeks of what she described as "extreme tension."
Metro Fire Chief Don Mette also put Captain Mark Thomsen on administrative leave on Dec. 2 and launched an internal probe into whether he unlawfully modified a district incident report about Engellenner, court documents show.
Mette did so after learning that Thomsen, at Engellenner's request, "materially altered" a computerized incident report about an alcohol-related emergency medical visit that Metro Fire made to Engellenner's Antelope home, the documents show.
During a brief interview on Thursday, Engellenner, 58, said many of the allegations against him are false.
He referred specific questions to Eugene Chittock, a Susanville attorney who didn't return telephone calls.
"My drinking is not an issue, by the way," said Engellenner, a retired corrections officer who was re-elected to the board this fall.
Engellenner, who said he has been distraught lately because his mother had a stroke and is ill, is himself considering a lawsuit against the district over the contents of the incident report, court documents state.
Metro Fire board member Ray Trujillo questioned whether the district's response to the alleged threats was excessive, especially after Engellenner apologized for his remarks.
Court documents state that Engellenner called Margarita on Dec. 14 and apologized -- as Sacramento County sheriff's detectives recorded the telephone call.
Engellenner then asked Margarita to have the other employees call him so he could apologize to them, too.
"He's apologized and now they're going after him criminally?" Trujillo said in an interview. "A whole lot of stuff is going on that is getting out of control."
A hearing into the restraining order will be held Jan. 18. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department is investigating the threats allegedly made by Engellenner and changes made to the Metro Fire incident report.
Metro Fire alleges in court documents that Engellenner's excessive drinking and public intoxication at meetings and at an official district ceremony have caused serious problems that have escalated into threats.
The trouble began on Nov. 17, when Metro Fire paramedics were called to Engellenner's Antelope home on Antelope Hills Drive. They reportedly transported him to a hospital for a case of "potential alcohol poisoning," the court documents state.
After he was released, Engellenner asked Metro Fire's board secretary, Charlotte Tilson, to fax him a copy of the Metro Fire report about the incident.
Engellenner later told Tilson the report was "incorrect" and that it would be "remedied," the court documents state.
Next, Engellenner allegedly called Thomsen, who accessed a firehouse database and then modified the incident report, court documents state.
Metro Fire alleges Thomsen removed a reference that named Engellenner and "the fact that he described himself as an alcoholic," the documents state.
It is a penal code offense to enter a public agency's computer systems or databases and alter or modify a computerized record without official authorization.
Thomsen said he's innocent and so is Engellenner.
"I know what my role was, and it was lawful and aboveboard," Thomsen said. "This is just a big setup."
(Thomsen was recently elected a director of the El Dorado Hills Fire Department's board.)
In his sworn affidavit filed in Superior Court, Margarita said he and his employees need to be protected because Engellenner's "excessive intoxication" worsened in November.
He alleged that because Engellenner is a retired prison guard, he might own and know how to use firearms and could get violent, given his increasing anger and "volatile and unpredictable behavior."
Margarita described a troubling series of incidents involving Engellenner that allegedly culminated with the threats made during a Dec. 7 phone call after Engellenner was released from a local hospital.
During the call, the board president allegedly made threats and racist remarks about him; Chavez, the associate general counsel; Edwards, the legal secretary; and Jeff Rinek, a Metro Fire investigator.
Margarita said in the affidavit that an "extremely intoxicated" Engellenner, slurring his speech, started screaming profanely and ordered him to stay away from Tilson, the board secretary.
"I am going to come over there (expletive deleted) and grab you by the back of the head and pull you down stairs, drag you through the parking lot and kick the (expletive deleted) out of you in the gutter, do you understand me?" he reportedly said.
When Margarita asked whether he would put his order into an e-mail, Engellenner reportedly launched into another outburst of insults and threats, including offensive comments about Margarita's wife.
During the tirade, Engellenner also is alleged to have referred to Chavez as "Juan Corona, Jose Chavez" and used a racially offensive taunt to describe him. He also allegedly called Edwards profane and derogatory terms for women.
He threatened to have them all publicly humiliated and fired, Margarita's affidavit said.
Margarita immediately reported the threats to Mette. The two men then filed a complaint with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, court documents state.
That night, Engellenner drove from his home to a graduation ceremony for Metro Fire Academy recruits, arriving "heavily intoxicated" with a cut and blood on his face, Margarita's affidavit states.
Engellener said he cut himself shaving, but Mette and several Metro Fire employees hustled him out of the building and drove him home, court documents state.
The court order against Engellenner barred him from attending a Thursday night district board meeting at which members were to elect a new board president after the district's fall elections.
That meeting was suspended after three board members, including Trujillo and Greg Granados, left before the vote, leaving too few members for the election to lawfully proceed. Trujillo said he had back trouble; Granados didn't return telephone messages.
Margarita said Metro Fire would have filed for a restraining order before this week, but people were in shock about the threats and he himself became unavailable after his own mother fell seriously ill.
The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District offers fire protection and emergency medical services to almost 600,000 people in the region -- except for the city of Sacramento -- across a 417-square-mile area. It has an annual budget of $163.4 million.
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