You would think, once a New London resident was killed after falling into a running trash compactor at the city transfer station, that city administrators would have swung into full red safety alert.

After all, we now know that the city had already been fined back in 2010 for what were then described as serious safety violations at the very same facility where someone was killed in early 2014.

Instead, things apparently went from bad to worse at the transfer station after the trash compactor death.

Indeed, a safety switch installed after the compactor fatality — part of the broad response to a new $10,800 fine by the occupational safety division of the state Department of Labor, CONN-OSHA, for "willful" and "serious" safety violations — was intentionally circumvented.

One of the operators at the station apparently was routinely using duct tape to hold down the new safety switch, which was installed to make sure that an operator was fully in control of the compactor when it was running.

No one was in the compactor control booth, with the compactor just left running, when the death occurred.

This makeshift workaround for the safety switch, enabling someone to walk away while the compactor is left running, was discovered by a part-time operator of the station, who notified CONN-OSHA about the duct tape.

"The safety button is being taped down ... (this) defeats the very purpose of this safety mechanism, putting everyone working there in danger," Department of Public Works employee Okoi Tucker wrote to CONN-OSHA.

Once CONN-OSHA was brought in by Tucker's whistleblower notice, the city responded with an investigation, firing one control room operator and disciplining four others.

Tucker sent CONN-OSHA pictures of the sticky tape residue left around the safety switch on the control room panel. He also took a picture of the roll of duct tape, which was left in a corner of the control room.

Clearly, everyone routinely using that control room knew or should have known the safety switch was being taped.

How could the public works director have let this go on?

You might think that Tucker would have gotten some thanks for sounding an alarm to make the dangerous compactor safer.

Instead, he claims in a subsequent complaint filed with the Department of Labor, he has been the subject of retaliation.

"The city ... throughout the investigation has threatened to discipline me, intimidated and humiliated me," he wrote in his Feb. 9 letter of complaint.

He said in the letter he was no longer assigned to work as a transfer station operator after reporting the tape to CONN-OSHA. He said he also was denied overtime hours in the solid waste department that he had been working before reporting the tape.

Maybe worst of all, it strikes me, Tucker told the Department of Labor that he was made to clean up the residue of tape left on the control board around the safety switch.

"(My supervisor) said he wanted me to clean off the so-called tape residue, since I was the one who discovered it ... leaving me feeling ashamed, and stressed out, as if my action of reporting the issue was the wrong thing to do."

It looks to me that, if he hadn't reported the taping to CONN-OSHA, it would still be going on. No one else who was aware of it did anything.

Tucker, who is black, is also one of three New London public works employees who have filed complaints against the city with the state's Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, claiming discrimination.

It would certainly be an understatement to say that the transfer station is badly managed. After all, no one was ever disciplined after a city resident died in the facility that had already been cited for serious safety violations.

I tried to speak with Director of Public Works Tim Hanser this week, leaving a specific phone message that I wanted to ask about Tucker's retaliation complaint. He never called back.

The last time I spoke with Hanser, it was after the city announced that the transfer station was reopening following the death. He told me then he didn't know what had changed to allow the station to reopen.

I got the sense then he was desperately out of touch.

When the mayor appointed Hanser, someone with no experience in public works, he said it was OK, because he, the mayor, was an experienced city manager.

The mayor's office also did not respond all day Thursday, after I emailed the office in the morning to say that I was on deadline and looking for comment about Tucker's retaliation complaint and had not heard back from Hanser.

I guess I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to talk about it, either.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com

Twitter: @DavidCollinsct