Former Seattle Fire Department leader alleges misconduct, sexual harassment went unaddressed

A former top civilian official in the Seattle Fire Department has filed a $2.5 million claim against the city, saying she faced wrongful termination for “refusing to ignore unsafe conduct,” as well as “unlawful harassment and discrimination” occurring at the agency.

Sarah Lee’s claim submitted Oct. 31 lays out dozens of allegations, including a fire engine driver who was found with open cans of White Claw in his locker last August and remained on the job. The claim also alleges a female firefighter who reported harassment by her supervisor later found her uniforms shredded and “destroyed” by a boxcutter. Lee claims that employees failed to cooperate with internal and criminal investigators in that case.

Lee is a lawyer who worked at the Seattle City Attorney’s office before she became director of human resources at the Seattle Fire Department in early 2022. In the lawsuit, Lee claims she was given stellar performance evaluations there for three years in a row, but was fired this fall in retaliation for pursuing appropriate discipline in misconduct cases.

“Number one, I think a change in leadership is needed,” she said. “There is no incentive for the current command staff – both uniformed and civilian – to change.”

Lee says SFD did not follow city policies on progressive discipline, repeatedly awarding minor discipline for “egregious acts of misconduct.”

She said the command staff failed to address a toxic atmosphere for female firefighters, which led them to band together in the workplace.

“They have cloistered together in different fire stations because of the ongoing escalation of the harassment and discrimination,” Lee said.

Lee alleges that an investigator recently substantiated another female firefighter’s complaint that a male firefighter “sexually harassed and assaulted her” at a fire station offsite event. Lee says the investigator found that the male firefighter “breached confidentiality during the investigation and was telling other firefighters that the sexual encounter with the female firefighter was consensual.”

Her claim describes a May 28, 2025 meeting between the SFD Women’s Alliance and Seattle Fire Department Chief Harold Scoggins, where Lee said in her claim, “the tension was palpable.”

The claim says the Alliance "adamantly expressed ongoing concerns that female firefighters were still being subjected to hostile work environment, being defamed by their male counterparts after making reports of discrimination and harassment, and that there was inequitable treatment in discipline” for male and female firefighters.

“What the [SFD] Women’s Alliance told Chief Scoggins was, ‘Look, you want us to go and promote the hiring of females when we don’t feel safe – why would we do that?’” Lee said. “I think Chief Scoggins really never had an answer for it.”

She says Scoggins and others in leadership cited a staffing shortage as the reason to keep people on the job who committed misconduct.

In the case of the fire engine driver with alcohol in his locker, Lee says command staff refused to take the man “out of the drivers’ assignment” because of the shortage.

“That’s just one individual out of a number of individuals that struggle with alcoholism,” Lee said. “And instead of getting them the help and having accountability measures, there’s an enabling aspect.”

While the Seattle Police Department has the Office of Police Accountability to investigate individual complaints and the Office of Inspector General to analyze larger issues, Lee says the Seattle Fire Department has no separate oversight. Lee thinks changing that would be beneficial.

The city of Seattle has 60 days to respond to Lee’s claim. A spokesperson for the Seattle Fire Department says they're “not able to comment on pending claims.”