Firefighter dismissed amidst charges

JACKSON, Mo. -- Less than six months after a Jackson city firefighter was suspended for sexual harassment, another fireman has been dismissed for what city officials will only describe as a similar situation.

Joel Allen Bockelman was fired Tuesday after less than a year as a paid on-call firefighter, said Jackson fire chief Brad Golden. Citing an internal investigation and calling it a personnel matter, Golden would only say that Bockelman violated city and departmental policies.

Bockelman, reached at his home Wednesday morning, declined comment.

But Jackson Mayor Paul Sander and city administrator Jim Roach said there were similarities to a February incident in which another fireman -- Mark Owens -- was let go after allegedly photographing a nude guest in his home, then threatening to post the photographs on the Internet.

"It did have some similarities to the dismissal that we had earlier," Sander said. "I don't know any of the details. All I know is that there are similarities."

The position wasn't high enough to warrant input from Sander, but he agreed with the decision to terminate Bockelman.

"We have reasonable policies and this was one of those no-tolerance situations," Sander said. "It's an integrity type issue."

Sander said he has no reason to believe the two incidents are indicative of a larger problem at the Jackson Fire Department.

"You don't like for this sort of thing to happen, but the public expects you to deal with it fairly and the same way in every case and that's what the chief did," Sander said. "There may be other involvement, maybe not. I just don't know until the investigation is finished."

Similar incidents

Roach agreed that there were similarities to the earlier incident, but said he couldn't get into details. He said he doesn't see it as a departmentwide problem, either.

"The fact that we've had a couple of events of somewhat similar nature is a concern and we are looking deeper into that to make sure it's not a problem," Roach said. "But I believe we've had two incidents and they've both just happened to have occurred within one department."

Roach would not rule out that criminal charges are possible against Bockelman. He expected the investigation -- which is being conducted by him, the fire chief and the city attorney -- would be done by early next week.

Bockelman is a 1991 graduate of Hoover High School in Des Moines, Iowa. He received a fire science degree from Southeast Community College in Lincoln in 1999.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137