Name: SAFD policy allowed firefighter to continue working, eventually retire with a pension after attacking girlfriend
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SAFD policy allowed firefighter to continue working, eventually retire with a pension after attacking girlfriend

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WEATHER ALERTTags:&nbsp;Sign up for our NewslettersTags:&nbsp;SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio firefighter found guilty last year of assaulting a fellow firefighter inside a Medina County home was allowed to remain with the agency for two years after the attack and eventually retired with benefits, city records confirm.Michael Shawn Burns pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault causing bodily injury to a family member in June, more than two years after Medina County Sheriff’s investigators said he forced his way into a home outside Hondo and assaulted his girlfriend, a fellow San Antonio Fire Department firefighter.The victim called the Medina County Sheriff’s Office non-emergency line shortly before the March 5, 2018 assault and asked that deputies keep Burns from coming onto the property since she claimed she had recently learned that he was having an affair.“I told him he needs to stay in San Antonio tonight because he’s been drinking all day, and I found this out about him and I told him ‘do not come home.’ He is not welcome here at my house, and he says, well, I’m just going to have to deal with it because he’ll be there in 30 minutes,” said the woman during the call.Records, however, show that Burns arrived at the property before deputies, and by the time they got there, the victim already had a cut and bruises on her arm and marks on her neck.Burns forced entry into the home through a sliding door then began yelling at the woman before pushing and tackling her to the ground, a sheriff’s office arrest report states.After the woman ran to her truck in an effort to leave, Burns opened the truck’s door, put the vehicle in park then “started yelling and grabbing my neck and sides of my face and smushed his head on my face to the point it started hurting,” the victim told deputies at the scene.The report states that Burns was then able to pull the woman out of the truck and threw her to the ground as she attempted to call 911.“At this time, I could see the deputies at the top gate of the property,” the victim told deputies.Burns was taken into custody at the scene and then booked into jail, records show.“Victims know what they are about to face,” said Marta Prada Pelaez, president and CEO of Family Violence Prevention Services.“They know it. They are like a clock. They can anticipate it and they know, they feel the level of threat rising up, and they feel their inner resources not meeting the challenge,” said Prada Pelaez when asked about the victim’s attempts to get deputies to her home before Burns arrived.After his arrest, Burns was placed on administrative duty and moved to SAFD’s Fire Prevention Division.City Human Resources records, however, show Burns was able to reach his 20 years of service needed to qualify for a pension while still pending trial and retired last March without being disciplined for the arrest.The handling of Burns’ case was in line with SAFD’s current disciplinary protocol regarding domestic violence, which allows arrested employees to be assigned to administrative duty as long as they are not indicted.If indicted for a felony, SAFD employees are temporarily suspended and removed from the agency’s payroll, according to a department spokesman.Employees convicted of a domestic violence-related offense are then terminated, the spokesman said via email.Warren Schott, executive director of the San Antonio Fire &amp; Police Pension Fund, confirmed Burns is a retiree in the pension fund.“You have to make some very serious choices. Either you stand by the abuser or you stand by the victim,” said Prada Pelaez when asked about SAFD’s policy of not moving to terminate a firefighter after his or her arrest for domestic violence.“You have two options when it comes to domestic violence. There are no gray areas. You either do the right thing and stand by the victim, or you do the wrong thing and stand by the perpetrator,” Prada Pelaez said.SAFD officials declined to make Chief Charles Hood available for an interview for this story.Prada Pelaez said a more transformative process would be to handle domestic violence arrests in a similar manner to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, which in recent years has adopted a “zero-tolerance” approach to the issue.“He has become more likely to take action when one of his deputies is involved in domestic violence,” said Prada Pelaez, referring to Sheriff Javier Salazar.SAFD officials defended the handling of Burns after his arrest, claiming in an email that he was kept away from the victim while at work.Burns pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor family assault charge in June, was given six months probation and was allowed to move to Minnesota to be closer to his mother, according to a copy of his plea agreement obtained by the KSAT 12 Defenders.Burns did not respond to multiple calls to a phone number listed for him.Public records show other SAFD employees have remained with the agency while pending trial on family violence charges.Paramedic Barry Uhr was arrested twice in six months in 2018, and despite being accused of hurting members of his family in both incidents, he ., according to a city spokesperson, nearly 21 months after he was arrested on a misdemeanor family violence charge.Court records show the May 2019 case against Parks was dismissed last February but was then reopened last month and is currently awaiting indictment.Copyright 2021 by KSAT - All rights reserved.About the Authors:

WEATHER ALERTTags:&nbsp;Sign up for our NewslettersTags:&nbsp;SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio firefighter found guilty last year of assaulting a fellow firefighter inside a Medina County home was allowed to remain with the agency for two years after the attack and eventually retired with benefits, city records confirm.Michael Shawn Burns pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault causing bodily injury to a family member in June, more than two years after Medina County Sheriff’s investigators said he forced his way into a home outside Hondo and assaulted his girlfriend, a fellow San Antonio Fire...

SAFD policy allowed firefighter to continue working, eventually retire with a pension after attacking girlfriend

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