CHICAGO (WLS) — Special people getting special treatment: That’s exactly what Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg says she’s working to prevent. In her latest report, she says Chicago Fire Department members falsified reports as a “professional courtesy.”

“Chicago has a decades-long, generations-long arc of mistrust and distrust in city government,” Witzburg told the I-Team.

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The OIG’s report is a scathing indictment of actions taken by members of the Chicago Fire Department after an assistant deputy chief paramedic was found at an intersection, slumped over the wheel of the vehicle, according to the report, then driven away by an on-duty captain EMT.

Witzburg’s quarterly report was released Wednesday. It says her office received information the assistant deputy chief paramedic was intoxicated at the time, CFD members falsified reports and lied to Chicago police to protect them. The report goes on to say the paramedic was taken to a fire station and allowed to sleep for an hour and a half in an office.

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“We recommended a range of different disciplinary actions for the subjects in this investigation, most of which the fire department either declined to implement at all or implemented much lighter disciplinary penalties,” Witzburg said.

The incident is eerily reminiscent of misconduct allegations against former Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, after he was found slumped over the wheel of his city SUV in 2019. An inspector general report in Johnson’s case found he was alcohol-intoxicated.

In the case of the Chicago Fire Deputy chief paramedic, Witzburg says, “The reports and evidence gathering at the time of the incident that would have allowed us to make that determination never happened. That was the intention of these activities: to sort of prevent the detection of the incident. I do not think that the response on discipline reflects an effort to take seriously this sort of misconduct.”

During the investigation, the assistant deputy chief paramedic retired from CFD, and Chicago fire issued a six-day suspension to the on-duty captain EMT who falsified reports, according to Witzburg.

The report says the fire department insists there was no special treatment in this case, and there was no indication the assistant deputy chief paramedic was intoxicated.