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Two Sacramento Fire Department Captains leveraged their positions in 2024 to buy the home of Christie Evangelista, an emotionally and mentally vulnerable elderly woman.<\/p>\n
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What does it take to get fired from the Sacramento Fire Department?<\/p>\n
An investigation unearthed by The Bee\u2019s Mathew Miranda<\/a> found that firefighters Douglas Muraki and Michael Mora failed to disclose to the city that they had a side job flipping homes. They used city time and equipment to renovate a home purchased from a 69-year-old woman under the most disturbing of circumstances. And to further thumb their noses at the city that employs them, they failed on at least eight occasions to get the required city permits to do the renovations.<\/p>\n The city apparently tried to fire Mora at first. Yet that didn\u2019t happen. The mountain of evidence of wrongdoing from the independent investigation, for some reason, wasn\u2019t enough. Mora remains on the force, as does Muraki.<\/p>\n In the private sector, this kind of behavior gets somebody fired several times over and a referral to Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho<\/a>, who should be paying attention to this. But he won\u2019t.<\/p>\n Yet in the public sector, particularly for public safety employees like firefighters, incidents like this too often result in the equivalent of a slap on the wrist for Mora and Muraki. It speaks to a troubling double standard. And it simply invites more bad behavior.<\/p>\n This is a stain on a fire department that is doubling as the first responders to issues involving the city\u2019s homeless. Firefighting in Sacramento is no walk in the park, but moonlighting on the job and violating city policies and procedures along the way is unacceptable.<\/p>\n The circumstances surrounding this 69-year-old woman, the late Christie Evangelista of North Sacramento, are the most troubling of all. She called 911 for help, and it ultimately resulted in a real estate transaction involving one of the first responders, Muraki.<\/p>\n Evangelista\u2019s son says his mother was grappling with the onset of dementia and the lingering effects of chemotherapy to battle two cancers. She reportedly mentioned to Muraki that she was thinking of selling the home. He then returned at least four more times to the property while on duty.<\/p>\n
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