Salt Lake fire captain and paramedic instructor charged with sexually abusing 2 students

A Salt Lake fire captain who taught EMT classes at a community college has been charged with inappropriately touching two of his students.

A Salt Lake fire captain who taught EMT classes at a community college has been charged with inappropriately touching two of his students. (Annie Barker, Deseret News)


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KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • Christopher David Burk, a Salt Lake City fire captain and paramedic instructor, faces sexual abuse charges.
  • Burk is accused of using his position to inappropriately touch students during unauthorized assessments.
  • The Salt Lake City Fire Department placed Burk on administrative leave.

SANDY — A captain with the Salt Lake City Fire Department who also taught paramedic classes at a community college is accused of sexually abusing two of his students.

Christopher David Burk, 46, of Herriman, "used his position of trust as a paramedic instructor and firefighter at a local station to prey upon the victims. (He) sexually assaulted the victims under the guise of demonstrating assessments, some of which were not part of the curriculum," according to charging documents that were made public on Thursday.

An arrest warrant for Burk was issued Tuesday. He was taken into custody by Sandy police on Wednesday.

Burk is charged in 3rd District Court with six counts of forcible sexual abuse, a second-degree felony; and attempted forcible sexual abuse, a third-degree felony.

The Salt Lake City Fire Department released a prepared statement on Wednesday regarding "employee misconduct allegations" without naming Burk.

"We take any allegations of misconduct seriously and are dedicated to ensuring a thorough and transparent investigation process. Recently, the Salt Lake City Fire Department received allegations of misconduct of one of our firefighters/employees. The Salt Lake City Fire Department holds all members to the highest standards of conduct both on and off duty. Any behavior that does not align with these standards will be addressed swiftly and appropriately. While the investigation is ongoing, the firefighter in question has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation."

Sandy police were first informed in October that Burk, who was teaching EMT classes, had a woman stay after class to "review some things," according to charging documents. He inappropriately touched her under her shirt while showing her how to check for broken ribs and a broken sternum, the charges state.

The woman told investigators "she was frozen and scared."

Burk touched her inappropriately again in other areas under the guise of showing her more procedures, according to the charges. The woman "said she was scared to report the incident because she feared Burk would retaliate against her and fail her."

On Friday, while conducting follow-up interviews as part of the investigation, police learned a second woman "had reported a sexual assault against Burk."

The woman "reported that Burk was her instructor while she was a student in the EMT program. (She) said while in class, she felt 'targeted' by him because he always used her as an example to do assessments with," according to charging documents. "(She) stated that Burk did multiple assessments on her and touched her breasts 'numerous times.'"

The woman also recounted a ride-along in August when Burk invited her to go, and he ended up touching her inappropriately while performing "assessments" with her, the charges allege.

An employee with the EMT program later confirmed to police that some of the assessments Burk was performing on the women are not part of the curriculum, "that it would be against the program policy to touch students under clothing," and "it's against policy to conduct one-on-one instruction," and "against policy to offer teaching services outside of the classroom," the charging documents state.

"Both victims reported fearing (Burk) and fearing retaliation, knowing that he held a position of power and could control what happened in their future. One victim reported that she was scared (he) would show up at her residence because he had access to her files and knew where she lived. That victim stated the traumatic experience from the sexual assault caused her to drop out of the program, thus giving up her dream," prosecutors noted in the charges.

The court documents also allege that Burk "has evaded police contact."

Sandy police encourage anyone who may have been a victim to contact them at 801-568-7200.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Pat Reavy interned with KSL NewsRadio in 1989 and has been a full-time journalist for either KSL NewsRadio, Deseret News or KSL.com since 1991. For the past 25 years, he has worked primarily the cops and courts beat.

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