LAFD Terminated Firefighter For Refusing Covid Vaccine Just Months Before Deadly Wildfires

When Los Angeles Firefighter Edward Brockschmidt returned to duty, he thought his troubles with the city and the fire department were over.

The Los Angeles Fire Department placed Brockschmidt on unpaid leave for refusing the Covid vaccine in 2021, he told The Federalist. Officials kept him on unpaid leave for more than two years. Then after providing a religious exemption and returning him to duty, they fired him in August 2024 for not complying with the vaccine mandate — which was no longer in effect.

“Proper procedures were not followed because their goal was to get as many people vaccinated as possible,”  Brockschmidt told The Federalist. “There’s a few of us that dug our heels in the ground and said, ‘You can’t do this to us, we’re following the law and the rules.”

Since then, Brockschmidt had to find employment elsewhere. More than 100 firefighters were placed on leave without pay, and as of 2022, the department fired 12 for not complying with the vaccine mandate. The LAFD remains critically understaffed as wildfires ravage the area. 

Forcing Compliance

Brockschmidt has been with the LAFD since 2014, he said. In 2021, the city council mandated all municipal employees get a Covid vaccine or an exemption — and report their vaccination status — by October that year.

“The department kept putting out these threatening notices — information notices — in our stations like, ‘If you don’t do this, you will receive penalty up and to termination,’” Brockschmidt said. “We’re like, ‘You can’t do that. We have a union representing us. You can’t just bypass them.’”

A firefighter who wished to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions shared a compliance notice and “direct order” with The Federalist.

The Covid vaccination deadline for city employees was ultimately extended to Dec. 18, 2021. Brockschmidt still hadn’t complied by Dec. 7, so a chief came by the station. He said he asked to record their conversation, but the chief refused.

“They get this chief to come by saying, ‘Here’s a 48-hour notice so that you know that you’re in violation,’” Brockschmidt said. “Myself and others were constantly threatened that if you were to record, it would lead to more disciplinary action.”

Nothing happened after the 48-hour notice, he said. But on Dec. 15, the LAFD Valley Bureau sent him a notice on red letterhead. “‘As of December 15, at 0800 hours’ — or whatever it is, ‘you’re relieved of duty without pay,’” the letter read, according to Brockschmidt.

“It was that day that they took away my pay and imposed discipline back in 2021. And I was on leave without pay for over two years,” Brockschmidt said. “Not only was I on leave without pay for over two years, I was never given the chance to defend myself and argue my case for that time.”

Avoiding Due Process

The Los Angeles firefighters’ union challenged the city, and an arbitrator ruled in the firefighters’ favor in November 2023. “The ruling was that we be made square, basically, so full backpay and all kinds of stuff,” Brockschmidt said. He said the LAFD still owes him hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay.

He said many firefighters were off duty without pay at the time, and the chief soon allowed a handful who submitted exemption requests back to work. But Brockschmidt said the LAFD should have called all firefighters back to duty since their numbers were so low.

“Why not bring all of us back?” Brockschmidt said. “Logically speaking, good-faith speaking, that’s what would happen. Obviously, that’s not the case.”

Fire department officials kept Brockschmidt — who hadn’t yet submitted an exemption — and many other firefighters off duty, he said, though the LAFD did begin paying him again from December 2023 to February 2024. 

But in February, officials began his hearing with the “board of rights,” an internal review board. During the hearing, they took away his pay again. Brockschmidt said the board hearings usually only last a few days, as officials appointed to the board make it their “priority.”

“They aren’t supposed to do anything else but be on this board and be available for this stuff, outside of emergency things,” Brockschmidt said. “That wasn’t the case.”

He pled “not guilty” with the board, and his next hearing was set for April. Meanwhile, he says he was still not being paid — stuck in “limbo.” In April, Brockschmidt filled out a religious exemption form.

“I talked to my pastor at church and everything. I was like, ‘Everything about this is wrong, registering my belief,’” he said. “I filled it out. I didn’t block out anything, I filled it to the T, submitted it.”

Days later, he said, the LAFD’s Covid-19 Exemption Review Committee denied the request. 

“You must give it a good faith, interactive process before denying someone’s religious beliefs,” he said. “Obviously they didn’t care.”

So Brockschmidt and a coworker drafted an appeal. “All we did was state how they can’t deny it,” he said. Within 24 hours, he said, it was approved — but not by the exemption committee. “We got an approval email signed by ‘Fire,’” Brockschmidt said. “No name, no committee, just ‘fire.’”

Brockschmidt said employees were allowed to file a religious exemption up until their termination, and he secured this exemption in April — before arguments had even started in his board of rights hearing.

Brockschmidt used a notarized letter and Los Angeles’ accommodation form to request a religious exemption. “Employees who hold a sincerely held religious belief will be engaged in an interactive process and accommodated, absent an undue hardship to the City,” reads the fine print on the official form.

Ex Post Facto

Despite securing his exemption, Brockschmidt was set for more board hearings that summer — even after the city rescinded its vaccine mandate in June. He said he made various requests to return to duty, which officials denied. 

“It’s not in effect anymore. You cannot discipline on this thing anymore,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Well, what the hell? Why are they not putting me back?’”

“Chief can do whatever she wants, anytime she wants to. If she wants the board to stop, she can stop it.”

As the Federalist previously reported, Chief Kristin Crowley has been busy subverting the department with DEI. 

After Brockschmidt’s repeated attempts, officials let him begin working again. In late July 2024, Brockschmidt was back on the job for the first time since 2021, and he resumed working for nearly a month. But he had his final board of rights hearing in late August. 

“They came to a decision to terminate me,” he said. “‘Should it have occurred in a timely manner, this decision would be made before the rescission and I would have been terminated.’ They also viewed me submitting a religious exemption as disrespectful and undermining, and I think manipulative, not only to the city of L.A., but to the citizens we serve.”

Brockschmidt was fired on Aug. 29, 2024. He said some boards of rights reviewed cases in earnest — but his “chose to use that as a weapon.”

“There was this animosity toward me,” he said. “The decision to terminate seemed to be motivated by my declaration of religious beliefs and approved exemption.”

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Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.

The Federalist