Changes in FDNY leadership continue as two other deputy assistant chiefs are asking to return to previous assignments.
Deputy Chief of Safety Frank Leeb and Deputy Chief Kevin Woods are the latest high-ranking chiefs to relinquish their posts and request a return to the field.
Earlier this week, Chief of Department John ‘Jack’ Hodgens and Chief of Fire Operations John Esposito stepped aside following the demotions of Assistant Chiefs Michael Gala, Joseph Jardin and Fred Schaaf to deputy chiefs, according to the New York Daily News.
FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh demoted the trio without consulting Hodgens and Esposito, who usually weigh in on such decisions, according to Lt. Jim McCarthy, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers’ Association.
Kavanagh was greeted with jeers and boos as she stepped to the podium Tuesday morning during the department’s promotion ceremony.
Hodgens, on the other hand, got a rousing standing ovation that lasted several minutes. He didn’t take the podium to address the new officers as he usually does.
Leeb, who gave the keynote at last year’s Firehouse Expo, wrote in a letter requesting the move that recent changes made it impossible for him to continue in his position.
“Several changes have led me to believe that our organizational priorities are shifting away from the cornerstones of safety and training which have long protected the citizens and visitors of New York City, as well as the members of our great organization. Additionally, breaches of trust coupled with a lack of communication and transparency have further led me to this difficult decision,” according to The New York Post reporters who reviewed the letter he sent.
Leeb’s request continued: “As a servant leader, I have never placed myself before the organization and today’s decision is no different,” Leeb’s letter states. “I look forward to continuing to serve and contribute in meaningful ways. Therefore, I am respectfully requesting a return to a field assignment in my civil service title of deputy chief effective [at 9 a.m.] Monday, March 6th, 2023.
McCarthy said he wouldn’t be surprised if other deputy chiefs make similar requests.
Two state troopers and a firefighter were injured on the scene of separate crashes in Hamden and Cromwell on Wednesday morning, according to the Connecticut State Police.
There were several crashes on Wednesday morning as Connecticut saw some icy road conditions following a bout of rain on Tuesday night. There were reported injuries reported in at least four crashes on Wednesday morning, state police said.
Troopers responded to a report of a crash on Route 15 South near Exit 60 in Hamden at around 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday. A trooper was struck by a car while inside their cruiser, state police said. Minor injuries were reported in the crash. The highway was closed for a short amount of time.
Troopers from Troop H responded to a report of a rollover crash on Route 9 near Exit 22S in Cromwell before 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday. Minor injuries were reported in the crash and one person was transported to an area hospital, state police said.
While on the scene of the crash in Cromwell, a trooper and a firefighter were struck by a car while outside of their vehicles. The two responders were injured in the crash and transported to an area hospital, state police said. The off-ramp to Interstate 91 North was shut down.
“Anytime a motorist sees any emergency vehicle on the side of the road they should slow down well below the speed limit and, if safe, move over to the lane farthest from the emergency vehicle(s),” Trooper Pedro Muñiz said in a statement Wednesday.
There were also reported crashes with injuries in Meriden and Manchester on Wednesday morning, state police said.
Troopers responded to a one-car crash where the vehicle was overturned on I-691 West near Exit 5 in Meriden after 5 a.m. One person was transported to an area hospital with minor injuries, state police said.
State police also responded to a one-car rollover crash in the median of I-84 East near Exit 62 in Manchester before 7 a.m. There were serious injuries reported in the crash, but the extent of the injuries is unknown at this time, state police said.
Muñiz said drivers should slow down and “ditch all distractions” when faced with icy conditions as the state saw on Wednesday.
Two cars, one of which police were attempting to stop, collided and struck an East Baltimore building Wednesday night, killing a pedestrian, injuring five people and causing the structure to partially collapse, according to Baltimore Police.
Baltimore Deputy Commissioner Richard Worley said the crash happened at about 8:54 p.m., after police attempted to stop one of the vehicles, which he said was stolen, on the East North Avenue corridor.
When police tried to stop the vehicle, it accelerated and crashed into another vehicle, and then a building on the southeast corner of North Wolfe Street and East North Avenue. Both vehicles were occupied, and the building appeared to be vacant.
The crash killed a 54-year-old man, who police said was a pedestrian on the sidewalk. Five people who were in the vehicles were taken to hospitals with injuries. Police did not know the condition of the other five.
Worley said authorities were still determining whether the Independent Investigations Division of the Attorney General’s Office will be handling the matter.
Police and fire crews pulled the vehicles from the wreckage and continued to clear debris in the intersection, which is on the border of the Broadway East and South Clifton Park neighborhoods.
Police had spotted the vehicle about “four or five blocks” up from the scene of the crash, Worley said. It was unclear how police were attempting to stop the vehicle.
“I don’t know that we were pursuing at all, we attempted to stop it,” Worley said when asked about the stop. “That’s still under investigation, we’ll look at all the body-worn camera, any other video to see what in fact happened to cause the vehicle to take off.”
CityLink Gold and LocalLink 21 bus routes are temporarily diverted as crews assess the scene.
Kansas City firefighters said they have been grabbed in sexually inappropriate ways and subjected to racial slurs in the city’s fire stations, according to a Kansas City Council report released Wednesday.
The 163-page KCFD Cultural Assessment was produced by a third-party consultant, Debra J. Jarvis Associates Consulting & Training LLC, after a yearlong review that the authors said included 231 KCFD employees from different ranks and positions. The names and identities of the participants were not included in the report.
Firefighters said they do not feel comfortable speaking up about problems because of a culture of bullying, intimidation and fear of retaliation in the department, according to the report.
“Many employees feel that their voices have not been heard and their interests not understood, promoted, or defended,” the report’s executive summary said.
Among the other key findings:
Firefighters treated fire scenes in low-income area different from those located in more affluent Kansas City neighborhoods. Fire crews will tear up houses more than necessary in poorer areas, while firefighters put plastic over couches and may not chop a hole in the roof while battling fires in more expensive homes.
Erratic driving that results in wrecks is commemorated in fire stations with plagues or mounted pieces of wreckage.
The report said it was commonplace for firefighters to tell inappropriate jokes and make slurs about a colleagues’ race, gender or sexual orientation.
Black firefighters are hesitant to speak up about problems for fear of being labeled an “angry Black man.”
Several fire stations do not have separate locker rooms and showers for women. Women firefighters reported being walked in on when using makeshift facilities.
Respondents said they would not want their family members to work at KCFD due to negative comments made about women.
Women members of the department felt they would be ostracized and their career advancement blocked if they filed harassment charges.
Fire Department leadership did not address firefighters who sent disrespectful, unprofessional emails to KCFD civilian employees.
Firefighters said they are forced to eat their meals fast and physically wrestle over who has to clean up the kitchen.
Sherae Honeycutt, a spokeswoman for the city, declined to comment on the report’s findings Wednesday.
According to the report: “The over-arching perceptions and opinions of KCFD participants in this culture study are that the two IAFF Unions prevent KCFD Management from holding personnel accountable for compliance with policies and practices because they have more power and influence in daily operations practices, as well as City politics that KCFD Management.”
Many employees who participated in discussion groups for the study cried or were distraught in relaying accounts of how they had been ostracized or ridiculed for not supporting union positions on certain matters or raised concerns about unsafe practices or harassment related to race or gender.
“When there is an imbalance between Union and Management power and influence, the community and the employees suffer,” the report said.
“The perception of study participants is that the IAFF Unions run the Fire Department, not Management. While Management is responsible by law, they do not have the authority to manage basic organizational systems, such as as hiring, training promotions, personnel assignments, and operational staffing because the Union CBAs prohibits such control.”
Safety concerns
Study participants said that safety is not a department priority.
Only about half of firefighters wear their air masks, known as self-contained breathing apparatus, at times when everyone should have them on. Seat belts aren’t always worn on the way to and from emergency calls.
The report said one result of the labor management imbalance is that the department still staffs fire stations as if fire suppression is the main priority, when in fact emergency calls are now the dominant service need.
Rescue squads are sometimes taken out of service in order to staff fire apparatus.
“Traditional staffing models have continued to prioritize staffing fire suppression vehicles over medical vehicles,” the report said.
The report released Wednesday makes a number of recommendations for correcting the department’s deficiencies. Among them is convincing the unions to engage in “meaningful, sustained, organizational culture transformation.”
That would mean management and labor examining the effectiveness of the labor-management agreement that was jointly adopted in 2001 and which many study participants identified as as one of the department’s core problems.
Clay Calvin, president of IAFF Local 3808, which represents the department’s battalion and division chiefs, said he had not read the entire report and declined to comment.
Local 42’s president, Dan Heizman, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Two teenagers pleaded guilty Wednesday to arson for setting a massive fire in May 2022 that destroyed large sections of the shuttered Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, officials said.
The two boys, a 17-year-old Carol Stream resident and a 15-year-old from Wheaton, pleaded guilty to starting the three-alarm fire on May 21 that damaged the main lobby, the Bourbon Street area and A, B and E wings of the hotel rooms at Pheasant Run. Fire crews were able to save the 16-story tower on the property.
The boys were originally charged with arson, burglary, criminal damage to property and three counts of criminal trespass, officials previously said.
Two other male teenagers, a 15-year-old from Winfield and a 14-year-old from Carol Stream, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing at the resort in connection with the incident.
All four teenagers will be sentenced on April 19, officials with the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office said.
Because the four are charged as juveniles, their names will not be released, a common practice in Illinois juvenile courts.
The fire broke out around 4:40 p.m. May 21 and firefighters found large sections of the resort at 4051 E. Main St. in St. Charles engulfed in flames.
More than 100 firefighters from more than 25 fire departments were called to help extinguish the blaze. An investigation was then launched by the St. Charles police and fire departments, the state fire marshal and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The four teens were accused of illegally entering the property and, once inside, two of the teens were accused of setting papers on fire in two locations and then leaving the area without extinguishing the fires, according to officials.
The resort had closed its door in March 2020 after attempts to auction the resort were unsuccessful.
On Monday, the St. Charles City Council approved a resolution to create a tax increment financing district in hopes to spur redevelopment of the property.
Three multiple alarm fires in downtown New Jersey towns ripped through stores and apartments in a matter of hours, displacing many residents.
A fire in West New York was discovered about 4:30 a.m., and went to five alarms. Six stores in three buildings were damaged, according to ABC7.
The businesses included a nail salon, smoke shop, repair store, beauty supply store, a Carvel Ice Cream store, and a Don Julios BBQ/ There were apartments above them, and all were affected.
A short time later, another large fire on the same street a few miles apart burned another three stores with apartments on the second and third floors.
Union City Mayor Brian Stack said about 50 people were left homeless by the fire.
Some of the North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue crews who mutual aid had been operating at the West New York fire was being redirected to Union City. It has been a strain on the dozens of firefighters battling both fires.
“Absolutely. a long day like this, hours of work. Guys work tremendously. They go through multiple bottles and it takes a toll on their bodies. Mentally, physically, psychologically, it affects you in all ways,” said Chief David Donnarumma, North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue.
The fires are being investigated by the Hudson County Regional Arson Task Force.
On Tuesday night, fire damaged eight buildings in downtown Plainfield. The blaze went to six alarms as more firefighters were needed.
The fire appeared to have started as a brush fire and quickly spread to several buildings, according to nj.com.
“This is a devastating blow to our downtown commercial district and to the city as a whole. Many of our business owners have sunk their life savings into these businesses, and the loss of income will be a hard blow. The administration will provide as much support as possible to those impacted,” Mayor Adrian Mapp told reporters.
A total of 125 firefighters from 17 towns worked overnight to contain the fire.
At 4:30 a.m., fire broke out 31 miles away in downtown West New York, NJ, damaging several businesses there.
Details are still emerging about an incident Wednesday morning in which a state trooper and a firefighter were struck along a highway.
The two were taken to the hospital after the wreck on Route 9 in Cromwell, The Middletown Press reported.
“While on scene, a trooper and a firefighter were struck by another vehicle at approximately 7:46 a.m.,” Connecticut State Police Sgt. Christine Jeltema told the media.
The extent of the injuries was not immediately known.
Los Angeles firefighters found a house fully engulfed in flames shortly after 2:22 a.m. Wednesday.
After extinguishing the fire, they found a woman, man and a cat deceased, KCAL reported.
The fire may have started in the kitchen, firefighters said.
On its Facebook page, LAFD officials wrote: “A single 9-1-1 call was received at 2:22 AM on February 8, 2023, with the caller hanging up before their needs could be determined. Because the Caller ID feature of their wired telephone provided both a callback phone number and a definitive address, an LAFD crew was promptly dispatched to investigate, as dispatchers sought unsuccessfully to reconnect with the caller.
The initial Los Angeles Fire Department responders arrived to find fire visible from the rear of a one-story home at 3537 May Street, and immediately summoned additional firefighting resources.”
Feb. 7—The father of a man who drowned in Back Cove in April 2020 filed an amended complaint in U.S. District Court on Tuesday naming the city of Portland and a Portland firefighter as defendants.
The wrongful death lawsuit filed by John Cohen, whose son Eric Cohen of Portland drowned nearly three years ago, names the city and firefighter Ronald Giroux Jr. as defendants, according to court documents filed in Portland.
Verne E. Paradie Jr., the Lewiston attorney who filed the complaint on behalf of John Cohen of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, said he named Giroux in the civil action as the result of discovery, the process in which parties in a court case exchange information about witnesses and evidence to be presented at trial.
Tuesday’s complaint is the sixth amended complaint filed in court since Paradie named the city, two of its police officers, and a third party referred to as John Doe, as defendants in a suit filed on Sept. 15, 2021. Since then, the police officers have been dropped from the suit, Paradie said in an interview Tuesday night.
The attorneys representing the city did not respond to requests for an interview Tuesday, and city spokesperson Jessica Grondin said the city does not comment on pending litigation.
In an order issued Feb. 1, U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Torresen granted Paradie’s request to identify John Doe as Giroux and helped clarify the city’s position. Torresen said the city of Portland opposed the request to add the Portland firefighter as a defendant in the suit because Paradie “has not shown good cause.”
In her order, the judge said that the defendant has long been on notice that Giroux was possibly the person previously named as ” John Doe,” so adding Giroux back in should neither prejudice nor unfairly surprise the defendant.
Eric Cohen, 25, drowned in the frigid waters of Portland’s Back Cove on April 12, 2020, after he ran into the water naked around 1:23 p.m. The lawsuit says that Cohen “was experiencing some form of psychosis” at the time. The air temperature that day was about 43 degrees, and the water temperature was 41.
Portland police said that Cohen, who had a history of mental health issues, got into an argument with his girlfriend that day while the couple were walking down Marginal Way near the Miss Portland Diner. Police say Cohen unexpectedly stripped off his clothes. His girlfriend began to pick up his clothing and attempted to calm him down, but Cohen beat her unconscious and assaulted a bystander who intervened.
After the assault was interrupted, Cohen fled behind the diner and across Interstate 295, and then jumped into Back Cove. Firefighters pulled him from the water 24 minutes later and took him to Maine Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The suit alleges that first responders could have acted faster and done more to save Cohen’s life while they waited for the city’s fireboat to arrive.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages to be determined at trial, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs, among other relief.
