Jan. 10—CLEVELAND — A Cuyahoga County grand jury has indicted a Cleveland man in the death of Johnny Tetrick, a firefighter originally from Geneva.
The grand jury indicted Leander Bissell, 40, in the death of the firefighter on charges of murder, felonious assault, involuntary manslaughter, failure to comply, failure to stop after an accident and aggravated vehicular homicide.
Bissell could face 15 years to life in prison if he is convicted of the murder charge.
Tetrick, 51, a 27-year veteran of the Cleveland Fire Department, was working Nov. 19 at the scene of a motor vehicle accident on I-90 near the Martin Luther King exit.
At about 8:15 p.m., he was struck by a vehicle that went around emergency vehicles, according to a Facebook post from Cleveland Fire Fighters IAFF Local 93.
Tetrick died at a hospital. He was a 27-year veteran of the fire department.
The driver who struck Tetrick fled the scene, but firefighters gave police a description of the vehicle — a white Chevy Malibu with front-end damage.
Bratenahl police officers caught up with a suspect — Bissell — around 1 a.m. Nov. 20, according to reports.
At Bissell’s initial court appearance, a judge set bail at $500,000, according to court records.
Tetrick, a graduate of Geneva High School, was the father of three girls.
The fire broke out just before 11:50 a.m., at the structure at 240 Hartman Bridge Road, Strasburg Township, according to police. First responders arrived to heavy fire and smoke conditions.
The business was closed, so only employees were in the building at the time of the fire and were able to evacuate safely, police said.
The state police fire marshalls’ preliminary investigation had witness statements pointing to the fire starting in the roof of the building.
Hershey Farm owner Clair Zeager told LancasterOnline an employee was working on the business’s roof when the glue he was using caught fire. The fire then spread to the gift shop and offices.
Investigators determined that the fire was accidental, police said. The flames caused a multi-million dollar loss to the building and its contents.
Police said 24 fire departments responded to the second alarm fire to assist, and the scene was still active as of 4 p.m.
Hartman Bridge Road, Route 896, is shut down in the area.
A girl owes her life to volunteers at the local fire department, and she just wanted to say thanks.
That’s why she, her parents, friends and cheerleading squad showed up at Murray Volunteer Fire Company.
The recent reunion was much different than their first encounter on Dec. 17 when Macy Wilke, 8, suffered a life-threatening seizure at her home.
“I went directly from my house to the scene,” Capt. Steve Van Gorp told KETV. “We just needed to get her in the squad and we needed to start transport right away to the hospital.”
Meghan Wilke said doctors told her the seizure was a result of encephalitis due to influenza A. Her daughter spent two days on life support after the episode.
“I don’t know that her outcome would’ve been so favorable if we didn’t have people who were willing to roll out of bed and drive their personal vehicles to answer our call,” Meghan said, adding that they live in a very remote area.
Macy understands how lucky she is. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have been alive without them. I feel thankful that the people were there for me.”
Van Gorp told the reporter: “It’s really cool to see her and how well she’s doing and how active she is.”
Two EMS personnel have been charged with murder following the death of a patient they were sent to help.
Peter Cadigan and Peggy Finley were arrested and charged with first-degree murder, according to Sangamon County, IL State’s Attorney Dan Wright.
They are being held in the Sangamon County Jail in lieu of $1M bail, WICS reported.
Lifestar Ambulance Service refused to comment about the arrests of its employees, the station reported.
Police called EMS to a home after noticing Earl L. Moore Jr., 35, was in distress.
Cadigan and Finley placed Moore face down on the gurney and tightened the straps across his back. He was transported to HSHS St. John’s Hospital where he died at 3:14 a.m. on Dec. 18, reports indicated.
The coroner found that the cause of death was compressional and positional asphyxia due to prone face-down restraint on a paramedic transportation stretcher due to straps across the back.
The Illinois State Police handled the investigation.
The federal government wants the city to resolve the massive salary gaps between its firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics — a bombshell determination that has become the backbone of a new class action discrimination lawsuit for equal pay among the city’s first responders, the Daily News has learned.
About 25 current and retired city Emergency Medical Service workers have signed onto the lawsuit, which centers around the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s decision that City Hall has “discriminated against current and former first responders of the FDNY’s EMS, based on race and sex, from at least November 8, 2018 to the present with respect to pay, benefits and terms and conditions of employment.”
The feds recommended in December 2021 that the city “reach a just resolution of this matter” and opened the door for a potential lawsuit if the city “declined to enter into conciliation discussions.”
With no further movement on the issue, EMS unions stepped through that door on Dec. 7 with the class action lawsuit filed in Manhattan Federal court seeking to correct the pay disparity.
Citing the EEOC report, the 57-page suit argues that the city “suppressed the salaries of EMS First Responders despite the fact that they perform work that is substantially equal in the required skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions as their fire side colleagues.”
As a result, EMTs and paramedics have suffered a “loss of wages, salaries and benefits, as well as emotional hardship and mental anguish,” the lawsuit notes.
EMS employees have been historically underpaid compared to FDNY firefighters and other first responders since merging with the department in 1996.
The pay gaps between the two groups continue to this day, even though the EEOC determined that EMTs and paramedics work just as hard as their firefighting counterparts, something that was made abundantly clear during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The investigation showed that workloads, working conditions, training, and risks to EMS first responders and firefighters are comparable, with a substantial degree of overlapping duties, especially with respect to medical emergencies,” according to the EEOC decision, which was completed after a two year investigation. “The evidence further shows the two groups have comparable accountability and responsibility.”
Despite their interlocking duties with the firefighters, city EMTs and paramedics weren’t considered uniformed personnel until a 2001 City Council law was passed. The Council further intervened in 2020, passing a resolution calling for EMS to be paid the same as firefighters, but the city has failed to take action, the EEOC decision noted.
Entry-level EMTs are paid a base salary of $39,386, according to the lawsuit. Within five years, their pay increases to $59,534. City firefighters start their career with a salary of $43,904 that goes up to $85,292 after five years.
The pay gaps continue throughout the EMS member’s career. EMS chiefs and commanders earn $135,053 a year while their counterparts on the fire side “who perform substantially equal work in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions” make $235,000 a year.
While the city’s firefighter force is mostly made up of white men, EMS is mostly people of color and has many women, causing a racial and gender disparity, the lawsuit added.
“EMS first responders work in the same conditions and perform at least as rigorous work and require at least as much training and effort, with at least as much regular hazards, if not more than, fire first responders,” the lawsuit said.
“Yet it is [the city’s] policy and practice to compensate the EMS first responders substantially less than their almost exclusively male and overwhelmingly white counterparts on the fire side of the FDNY,” the suit said.
“The injustice of pay inequity in the FDNY was not created by the current mayor or the current fire commissioner,” said Vincent Variale, president of Local 3621, which represents EMS lieutenants and captains. “But it is their moral and legal obligation to end it. Thanks to the work of the EEOC they have the opportunity to put this dark chapter of the FDNY behind us.”
Oren Barzilay, head of Local 2507, which represents rank-and-file EMTs and paramedics, called the EEOC decision “a historic moment for New York City’s emergency medical servicemembers.”
An FDNY spokesman could not comment on the lawsuit, citing the ongoing litigation.
“The FDNY is committed to fair and equitable pay practices. The case is under review,” a Law Department spokesman said in a statement.
When pay disparity issues are raised, the FDNY says they’re not to blame and any pay increases are hashed out by the city and union negotiators at the bargaining table.
“I personally believe that they are not compensated as they should,” former Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro told a City Council committee in 2021 when asked why EMS isn’t receiving better wages. “But we don’t control the process.”
When she was the FDNY first deputy commissioner, current FDNY Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh was involved in the EMS union’s 2021 contract negotiations, which led to a salary increase for EMS employees, including a 6% bump for all EMTs and paramedics who agreed to be trained to respond to mental health calls.
Jan. 10—Flint’s former fire chief is suing the city and its mayor, alleging he was terminated last year after refusing to lie about a fatal house fire and how his crewmembers responded.
Ousting Raymond Barton, a lifelong resident who had led the city Fire Department since 2016, “violated his federal rights, including his free-speech rights under the First Amendment, and the public policy of Michigan,” the chief’s attorneys said in the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court.
The litigation focuses on the fallout from the two-alarm blaze reported May 28 on Pulaski.
Two of the firefighters who responded initially claimed to have thoroughly searched the house for residents, including using infrared equipment and thermal imaging, but found no one trapped, according to the suit.
However, about seven minutes later, a second set of firefighters found two brothers, ages 12 and 9, in an upstairs bedroom, “visible to the naked eye,” the document stated.
The boys were identified as Zy’Aire and LaMar Mitchell, both African American.
State fire investigators determined electrical wiring in the residence caused the blaze, city officials said.
Barton believed the two firefighters had lied and started investigating, his lawyers said.
“They initially refused to give complete reports about their actions at the fire; and when they did finally submit their reports, Chief Barton concluded that they were false,” according to the lawsuit. “Chief Barton asked the two firefighters to correct their reports to include information about how they had made mistakes in looking for the two children, but they informed Chief Barton that they were unwilling to correct the factual misrepresentations in their official reports.”
Barton recommended the two be suspended without pay pending a final investigation then discharged when it ended. But Mayor Sheldon Neeley “wanted Chief Barton to alter official reports to disguise the firefighters’ misconduct, suspend the firefighters with pay, and drop his recommendation that they be discharged,” the attorneys wrote. “Mayor Neeley informed Chief Barton that he was up for re-election and that his wife was up for election for state representative and that both of them needed the support of the firefighters’ union.”
Though Barton refused, saying he wouldn’t lie if called to make statements or answer questions under oath in litigation brought by the family of the fire victims, Neeley eventually “unilaterally and surreptitiously changed the official recommendation” from the chief, then demanded a public announcement supporting it, according to the lawsuit.
“Chief Barton was also reluctant to make public statements that would paper over the obvious racial dynamic of the controversy,” his legal team said, and during a City Council meeting where the victims’ relatives sought answers, Barton explained that he had not changed his recommendation and wanted to discharge the firefighters.
“Given that the city had a large African-American population and given the history of racism by city officials, Chief Barton believed that public confidence in the Fire Department would be undermined if city officials failed to acknowledge readily apparent racial issues.”
After winning reelection in November, the mayor “called Chief Barton into his office and told Chief Barton to resign as fire chief or be fired because Chief Barton had refused to serve Mayor Neeley’s personal interests by participating in the cover-up of the firefighters’ misconduct,” the court filing stated. “Chief Barton refused to resign, telling Mayor Neeley that he had done nothing wrong. Mayor Neeley then fired Chief Barton because Chief Barton had been unwilling to make false statements to the public about what he had actually recommended regarding (the firefighters) and about the substance and circumstances of the Fire Department’s investigation.”
Neeley did not respond to a request for comment Monday night.
Caitie O’Neill, a city representative, told The Detroit News: “The city of Flint has not yet been served with a lawsuit, and has no comment at this time.”
Barton’s suit alleges deprivation of federal rights under color of state law; wrongful discharge in violation of Michigan’s public policy; and tortious interference with contract.
Having a male recruit place duct tape over the mouth of a female recruit’s mouth is just one of the reasons the Memphis training division chief is out.
Memphis Fire Division Chief Eric Shane Howell violated a number of policies including harassment, according to documents obtained by WREG.
On Dec. 8, he reportedly instructed a male recruit to put duct tape over a female recruit’s mouth, telling another instructor, “this is how we teach them to shut up.”
The station obtained Howell’s termination letter that outlines a number of incidents that occurred at the training academy. during his watch.
During an administrative hearing last month, he reportedly told the administration he had to “get on to the class” and laughed when presented a picture of the duct tape incident, calling it a “joke” but admitting he could “see why it can be taken the wrong way,” according to the station.
Howell was also accused of making recruits carry two, five-gallon containers of chemicals weighing 54 pounds apiece for extended distances.
Even after being disciplined, Howell used vulgar, sexual and inappropriate language while talking to the class.
During a previous session, he participated in or failed to stop actions toward certain recruits, according to his termination letter.
Howell asked that they take his 25 years of his past performance into consideration, including honors. He can appeal his firing.
A mother and a daughter were taken to the hospital Monday night after their vehicle fell into a sinkhole in Chatsworth.
They were in a vehicle about 10 feet down in the hole when a pickup truck toppled onto it, KTLA reported.
The occupants of the truck climbed out, but the other two were trapped.
Crews from Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles County and Ventura worked for more than an hour to free them as the vehicle shifted.
The road, which was continuing to “sluff and deteriorate” required crews to secure the vehicles.
Crews with the Los Angeles Fire Department rescued a mother and a daughter after their vehicle, along with another car fell into a sinkhole in Chatsworth.
A Denver firefighter, known as ‘Racist Rover,’ has been fired.
Lt. Jared Russo was terminated for ‘hateful intolerant speech,’ according to 9News.
The 12-year veteran reportedly mocked people of ethnic backgrounds and made racist jokes, the station reported.
Other firefighters didn’t like working with him because of his behavior.
“Lieutenant Russo’s misconduct extended beyond a single house to where he became known throughout the district and beyond as the ‘racist rover,’ ” officials noted in a notice of disciplinary action document.
