By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The District government will appeal a court ruling that overturned the city's firing of an emergency medical technician for her role in the botched care of a former New York Times journalist slain in 2006.

D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles said yesterday that the city will fight a D.C. Superior Court decision last week that upheld an employment judge's ruling that the District waited too long to fire Selena Walker. Walker was among the emergency medical workers faulted for the care of journalist David E. Rosenbaum, who died in January 2006. The court said the city failed to act within a 90-day window.

The city will ask the D.C. Court of Appeals to overturn the decision.

Walker was the driver of an ambulance crew that got lost on the way to pick up Rosenbaum, mistakenly determined that he was intoxicated, classified him as a low priority and then bypassed one hospital to take him to another that was farther away, according to Nickles and a D.C. inspector general's report.

Nickles said that Walker did not provide a full account of her actions during an initial interview before a panel that was reviewing the case in January 2006. She said she did not know why she went to Howard University Hospital instead of Sibley Memorial Hospital, which was closer, he said.

But in a June 2006 report released by the D.C. inspector general, Walker acknowledged that she had gone to Howard because it was closer to her home and she wanted to run errands, Nickles said. The city fired Walker that month.

"We would have been attacked if we terminated her earlier," Nickles said. "The [inspector general's] report was June 15, 2006, so the date of termination was well within the 90 days. . . . To me, this kind of misconduct is exactly what we in this administration need to act on to hold people accountable."

Rosenbaum, 63, died of a brain injury two days after he was attacked on Gramercy Street NW.

While the appeal is pending, Walker remains off the job, Nickles said.