Under court order, the City of San Jose late Monday released its full investigative report on the notorious October incident in which an on-duty fire truck visited the Pink Poodle strip club, disclosing for the first time that only one firefighter was disciplined over the incident.

The report, released after this news organization sued to obtain it, also offers the first detailed explanation of why the fire crew went to the strip club: Crew members claimed Fire Captain William Tognozzi, the ranking officer in the crew, had recruited a photographer who also worked at the Pink Poodle to take pictures of them to adorn the wall at Fire Station 4.

Tognozzi, along with firefighters Brian Dragges, Zach Clark and Matthew Westcott, said they used their station’s fire truck to drive to the club to pick up a flash drive with the photos. While they were there, they said, a bikini-clad woman who worked at the club demanded a ride on the engine, and they assented.

But the 100-page release still leaves key questions unanswered, including: Why did the fire crew make a second stop at another, nearby bikini bar? Firefighters initially said they returned directly to the station from the Pink Poodle. Later, when confronted with GPS data from the engine that showed the stop at AJ’s Bar, each insisted they could not remember that stop.

Tognozzi, along with Fire Chief Robert Sapien and Mayor Matt Mahan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The other firefighters involved in the incident could not be immediately reached for comment.

The documents were released to this news organization after a judge ordered the City of San Jose to do so in early July,

The Pink Poodle incident came to light after a popular San Jose-based social media account posted a video of what appeared to be a woman in a bikini exiting a San Jose Fire Department engine, and then heading inside the Pink Poodle on Oct. 5. The video, which went viral, prompted a strong retort from then-Mayor Sam Liccardo.

“If the investigation concludes that this video is as bad as it looks, then heads must roll,” Liccardo said in the statement issued Oct. 7. “We cannot have a life-critical emergency rescue apparatus relegated to a frat party bus, nor tolerate any conduct that so demeans the heroic work of the rest of our SJFD team.” But city officials released only a cursory overview of the incident at the conclusion of the investigation, with no names and no details of any discipline.

In May, the Mercury News sued the City of San Jose to get the city to release records pertaining to the incident, including those regarding potential disciplinary measures against the firefighters involved.

The city claimed in communications with this news organization that personnel records, such as those relating to disciplinary measures, were not subject to public information laws — a claim that was rejected by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Thomas Kuhnle.

The crew on the firetruck, Kuhnle ruled, “occupy a position of ‘trust and responsibility,’ and thus the public has a legitimate interest in knowing whether and how (San Jose Fire Department) enforces its policies.”

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In a statement released shortly after Kuhnle’s decision, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan called the ruling “good news” and praised the fact that the “public will now be able to see key details of the investigation themselves, and understand why significant discipline was imposed.”

Yet the disciplinary decisions still lack clarity. The records show that the city focused all of its investigatory efforts on Tognozzi, the captain. Tognozzi was later demoted to the title of fire engineer as a result of the Pink Poodle incident; the three other firefighters did not face any disciplinary action. Further, it appears from the report that there was never any consideration that anyone other than Tognozzi should face discipline.

The photographer is not identified in the report, and he declined to cooperate with the investigation, which was conducted by the Fire Department Bureau of Administrative Services.

The investigation determined that the firefighters never obtained the flash drive, although it is not clear why. All of the firefighters said that they were uncomfortable giving a ride to the bikini-clad woman, and did so only because she insisted.

Tognozzi was apologetic in his interview with the investigator, according to the report. “I made a poor decision that night,” he is quoted as saying. He took full responsibility for what happened that evening, he said, but he never clarified what happened at AJ’s Bar, where GPS records show the fire engine stopped for two minutes.

The investigator does not offer a conclusion regarding the insistence of each member of the fire crew that they did not recall the stop at the second bar. But the report says: “Based on the information gathered during this investigation, it is more likely than not that Fire Engine 4-B Shift crew drove, at CA Tognozzi’s direction, to and remained idle at another location outside of their first-in area after departing The Pink Poodle and reporting back to Fire Station 4 on October 5, 2022.”