District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department
In June 2015, Jullette M. Saussy was named the medical director of DC Fire and EMS. On January 29, 2016, she announced her resignation from that position in a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser. In her letter, she called the department's culture "highly toxic to the delivery of any semblance of quality pre-hospital medical care."
History of the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department
In March 2002, Mayor Anthony A. Williams announced an investigation into two assistant chiefs and a deputy chief who also may have been improperly hired by Few. Williams said Assistant Chief Marcus Anderson, Assistant Chief Gary Garland, and Deputy Chief Bruce Cowan falsified their résumés by claiming high-level jobs they did not hold and listing certification and educational credentials they never earned. Few had initially raised department morale in August 2000 by reversing a number of transfers ordered by former interim Fire Chief Kenneth B. Ellerbe (and viewed as punitive by the rank and file). But the hiring of Anderson, Garland, and Cowan deeply undercut morale again. "The people [Few] promoted were not the kind of guys that got things done," one battalion chief said. "I think the odds of an insider getting things done ... are probably better".