Donatus Okhomina Jr. was Palo Alto s first utility employee to die in the line of duty in more than three decades. The city s appeal of Cal/OSHA s citations continues to drags on after the 2019 accident.
While insufficient recruitment is one barrier to increasing the number of women, harassment is another. The grand jury report notes that while every department has a nondiscrimination policy, the unique work setting of a fire department coupled with the low number of women in fire service presents out-of-the ordinary workplace challenges because they live together and rely on each other during life-or-death situations. These unique features of this workplace make it more challenging for women to report discrimination and/or harassment, the report states.
While Capriles said the vast majority of her colleagues were awesome people and in some cases friends for life, harassment was a persistent issue for female firefighters. In most cases, she said, the person making an inappropriate comment didn t realize that he said something sexist until someone pointed it out to them.