A Petaluma fire captain was disciplined after he reportedly illegally parked in a fire lane outside his home and then angrily accosted the tow truck driver called to remove his vehicle – a moment caught on audio that prompted the driver to call police.
“How about knock on the f—-ing door,” a man identified as Fire Captain Brian Morgan is heard shouting at the driver – demanding that he be alerted first instead of towed – before slamming the tow truck’s door in footage obtained by the Argus-Courier.
“Proper actions” were taken against Morgan following the incident, according to Fire Chief Jeffrey Schach, although he did not say what those actions were.
The Aug. 5 incident at Sonoma Mountain Townhomes in north Petaluma came to light after Petaluma resident Chris Tomlinson sent an email about it to Chief Schach and cc’d several local leaders and media representatives.
After being called in by an HOA representative to remove illegally parked vehicles, “the towing company attempted to tow a green Jeep that had already been towed from the same fire lane on a previous occasion as well as generated multiple complaints from the HOA for other fire lane violations,” Tomlinson wrote.
“Before the tow truck driver was able to hook up to the Jeep, the vehicle’s owner, Petaluma Fire Captain Brian Morgan, came running out of his house in his underwear and forced open the passenger door of the tow truck and began to verbally assault the tow truck driver using profanity followed by forcibly slamming the door to the tow truck in his rage. Fearing for his safety, the tow truck driver immediately contacted the Petaluma Police Department and multiple officers quickly responded to Mr. Morgan’s residence.”
Although not all of those details could be independently confirmed, Schach did confirm in an emailed response to Tomlinson that fire department officials had been notified of the incident by the tow truck driver, and that “Contact was made with the Petaluma Police Department which confirmed they were requested and responded to the incident, and that no crime had occurred other than the initial parking violation.”
“Proper actions have been taken by the department to hold this person responsible, and reiterate organizational and community expectations, even while off-duty,” Schach wrote.
“Petaluma firefighters, and all civil servants should and are held to a higher standard and illegally parking in a red zone is wrong and not in alignment with the Petaluma Fire Department values and expectations,” he added.
The verbal assault on the tow truck driver was not directly addressed in Schach’s shared email to Tomlinson. Schach also stated that “I cannot provide further detail about the city’s actions with respect to this employee” due to privacy rules.
Morgan did not respond to a request for comment on the incident.
In the brief footage of the altercation – dash cam video from the tow truck, which recorded the driver’s and Morgan’s voices but does not show them – the fire captain has a short and angry exchange with the driver before the door of the truck slams shut.
“…Tow my f—ing car in front of my f—ing house …” Morgan is heard to say at the start of the short clip, while the unidentified driver explains that Morgan’s Jeep is “in a red zone.”
“Dude, I can’t do anything about that,” the driver says.
That’s when Morgan seems to demand that the driver knock on his front door first, rather than tow his vehicle away. Then a loud noise is heard, which is Morgan slamming the truck door shut, according to events as described by Tomlinson.
Tomlinson said the video footage he shared had been “sent to me from another resident who witnessed the encounter.” He did not respond to requests for further comment.
In 2018, Morgan was disciplined for his involvement in a minor scandal involving Petaluma firefighter and paramedic Brett Hughes, who resigned after admitting to bringing a woman to city fire stations to have sex with him while he was on duty, according to documents obtained through a public records request.
Morgan, who was Hughes’ supervisor at the time, said in his official appeal of the discipline that he had no knowledge of the misconduct and that Hughes wasn’t in his direct command for the majority of the year. In his appeal letter, he called the accusations “misleading and inaccurate,” and a “form of character assassination and harassment,” according to city records.
Morgan’s appeal was denied by department officials, and Schach, who was assistant fire chief at the time, called the incidents with Hughes a “huge wake-up call.”
According to city records, some fire employees interviewed for the department’s internal investigation into the matter described Morgan as “not being as engaged” as he “should be,” creating the perception of a “station where inappropriate acts/behaviors could easily go unnoticed.”
Amelia Richardson is a staff writer for the Argus-Courier. She can be reached at [email protected] or 707-521-5208.
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