Chicago fire chief steps down

CHICAGO -- The city's fire commissioner unexpectedly announced his retirement yesterday amid twin controversies about the department's handling of a deadly downtown high-rise fire and disclosures that firefighters had made racial slurs over department radios.

Mayor Richard M. Daley immediately named Cortez Trotter, head of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications, to replace James Joyce as commissioner. Trotter, who previously served under Joyce as a top deputy, will be the first African-American to hold the job after Joyce officially steps down at the end of April after 4 1/2 years in the post.

"I am as excited about retirement as I was the day I walked into a firehouse in Chinatown in 1965," said Joyce, a 39-year veteran of the department, during a news conference announcing the leadership change. "My wife and I are looking forward to the best summer of our lives."

For Joyce, he said he felt "betrayed" by at least six instances in which racial slurs were heard over open frequencies. "Not as a fire chief, I feel betrayed as a citizen of the city," Joyce said.

Daley also spoke of the slurs, which have added to years of charges that racism is pervasive in a department that remains 70 percent white, though the city is 60 percent black and Hispanic.

While saying that Joyce has his continued support, Daley acknowledged the ongoing debate over the response to the high-rise fire in the Loop that killed six people last October.

"The performance of the department and the behavior of a few firefighters -- a few -- are being questioned," Daley said. "Those questions must be resolved if the department is to maintain the confidence of the citizens of the City of Chicago."

Joyce was not at the scene of the fatal fire but was in contact with officials and had been told that people were trapped in the stairwells. Neither he nor senior officers on the scene ordered a full search of the stairs and the victims were not found until two hours after the fire began.

As to the racial slurs, Trotter was quick with a warning to the city's 4,900 firefighters.

"Let me serve notice to those who wrongfully believe that the department is a haven for small-mindedness, offensive behavior, and stagnation," he said. "We are entering a new era for the Chicago Fire Department."

Trotter, whom Joyce praised yesterday, said, "In order for every community to feel confident in the Fire Department and EMS service they receive, our department must reconcile our operational issues that we face, but more importantly, we must address our human relations and diversity problems."