Black Fireman Fought More Than Fire

[RecoveringAA]

Black Fireman Fought More Than Fire

By JANIS D. FROELICH jfroelich@tampatrib.com

Published: Sep 24, 2005


TAMPA - Unceremoniously, Robert Tucker spent his first night as Tampa's first black firefighter on a cot in a barrackslike upstairs at Station No. 1 downtown.

There were no newspaper headlines. No congratulatory speeches from city officials. No vocal support from the community.

The year was 1968.

Tucker felt proud -- not so much because he represented a historical milestone, but that as a high school dropout, he had worked hard to pass a Civil Service exam and was ready to enjoy the security of a government job.

"I wasn't, per se, out to be the first black firefighter," Tucker said recently. "But circumstances allowed me to have this distinction. This was a better opportunity for me to provide for my family."

He left the military four years earlier, finishing a 42-month Army stint. His military background, he said, prepared him for the precision and efficiency of a fire department. He eventually was promoted to lieutenant and worked as a fire inspector.

But Tucker's easy-going manner didn't fully portray what was going on inside the 6-foot, deeply religious man.

He suffered silently, such as when other firefighters stopped using communal coffee mugs after he arrived and instead brought theirs from home.

It was tough being the butt of jokes at work. More than once he found his boots filled with shaving cream. Or worse, he heard racial name-calling.

By 1977, the daily indignities and pressures began to unravel a once strong man and, when his marriage cracked, he did, too.

Pete Botto was in Tucker's rookie class 37 years ago and retired as Tampa Fire Rescue chief in June 2003. He said in a 1986 Tampa Tribune column of Tucker, "He was a good young officer, had real potential until he started having the trouble."

For Tucker's "trouble," or mental illness, doctors prescribed drugs such as Thorazine. Today, he can muster a laugh when he recalls the sedative was nicknamed elephant tranquilizers.

But being calmed by prescription drugs didn't mesh with the adrenaline-pumping job of fighting fires. After being on the scene of 100 fires, Tucker couldn't control the torch that was being put to his career.

He was in the hospital being treated for what was diagnosed as manic depression when a registered letter arrived at his home. It was less than six months before he would have qualified for a pension at the end of 1978.

The news wasn't good. Tucker had been terminated. The grounds of dismissal were neglect of duty because he failed to show up for work.

Then, he said, the city took his almost $10,000 pension savings to pay off a credit union debt.

Although he had worked in various positions for the fire department during his training, he wasn't offered a desk job. Instead, the city assigned him the next year to the Waste Water Treatment plant at Hooker's Point.

"They made it hard for me there. They had me do things that were out of the ordinary," he said. "But I couldn't fight it because I'd get the depression all over again."

He was terminated in 1980.

Haunted By His Termination
Tucker still is troubled by his treatment by the city. As he sits at a patio table in front of a Tampa Housing Authority apartment complex in South Tampa, he shows letters from city officials in recent years telling him to move on.

To an extent, he has. With an ever-so-slight brushing of gray in his black mustache and hairline, Tucker, 63, wears jeans and a T-shirt from his volunteer work for Seniors in Service. He states proudly that he is a West Tampa foster grandparent. Divorced, he speaks fondly of his two grown sons and two grandchildren. And he attends nearby New Salem Missionary Baptist Church.

He is comfortable in the Hyde Park neighborhood he has called home all his life, since his parents ran a grocery store at Fig Street and Oregon Avenue and he attended Dobyville Elementary School.

"I have been truly blessed from a humble background," said Tucker, a doted-on only child.

"It was amazing, but we had everything we needed," he said, as he recalled playing basketball behind the McKay auditorium at the University of Tampa and working part time at the Hyde Park Hotel and Ray's 5&10-Cent Store.

Yet the end of his career can't help but gnaw at him. He never again had a steady job as good as firefighter. Despite years of hiring attorneys, and even a private detective, he is not satisfied about the way his termination was handled.

He would like acknowledgment that he should not have been denied a pension because he wasn't offered options to take time off to deal with his mental health.

Jennifer Campbell, administrator of the city's pension board, wrote to him in 2003 to "Please cease and desist from contacting the pension office staff and the pension fund professionals to research this issue."

Sarah Lang, director of the city's Human Services, wrote in April, "This matter has been thoroughly reviewed over the past 25 years by the city's legal department and the fire and police pension board as well as other applicable city departments."

Marc J. Hamlin, chairman of the City Pension Fund for Firefighters and Police Officers, said those letters and numerous others to Tucker through the years say it all. "We have pursued this matter ad nauseam," he said.

Hamlin said it costs the city money every time an attorney has to deal with Tucker's questions. Hamlin said the same disability rules have been in place since 1969. The burden of proof is on an individual to qualify for disability benefits.

"Even the detective Mr. Tucker hired told him the case is closed," Hamlin said.

Museum Holds Glimmer Of Hope
Still, Tucker may get recognition at the Tampa Fire Fighters Museum being assembled at his old station No. 1 at Zack and Jefferson streets downtown.

Firefighter Todd Spear said plans are to include an exhibit of what he calls "nontraditional" firefighters, including blacks and women.

"We're not that far in the planning process because of lack of funding," he said. "We don't have an opening date yet."

Spear said he wants the stories of individuals to dominate at the museum. "Without the people, it would just be a building," he said of the station house, built in 1911.

Spear said he is aware of the "sensitive part" of Tucker's story. "Even though he was separated from his employment, this would never take away from what he accomplished," he said.