11Alive News learned late Friday that three Atlanta firefighters have been disciplined after an internal investigation into a fatal shooting at a package store last December.
It was all captured on video.
As a part of their internal investigation, the fire department reviewed a surveillance video from a Moreland Avenue package store. It shows the three fire fighters as they looked over the store counter at a clerk who had just been shot.
According to their superiors, the three saw no signs of breathing or movement from clerk Martez McKibben.
But the department concluded that the firefighters failed to check McKibben for other signs of life, by checking for a pulse or breathing as prescribed by the department’s operating procedure.
Lt. Dennis Smith will receive a two-day suspension without pay, while firefighters Charlamus Dennis and Katrina Sims will both receive letters of reprimand.
A statement from the fire department states that the inaction of the firefighters, “did not directly contribute to the death of the patient, but does not negate the fact that they failed to fully assess the patient.”
Also on STATter911 …
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- DC firefighter paid for not showing up to work for more than two years. Part of a 2008 corruption probe. – December 9, 2010
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I’m sorry to say but if they were under my command I would have fired them. Their actions disgust me. Even if you think there is no sign of life and even if you can smell they have been gone for some time you still have to confirm. Could they have saved that young man I dont know, however it is possible that if he was transported to a hospital he could have become an organ or tissue donor.
You know the sad part of this is a life was lost and now civil actions will probably arise from the inactions of these ff. The other side of the coin is we don’t know how bad the injuries were. We all go to calls where we have to make a dicision of is it an EMS scene or has it crossed the threshold into a crime scene. If the injuries were truly that bad, and I know we will never truly know ourselves, you don’t want to contaminate the crime scene and let a lawyer find a way to get someone off due to your own misstake. It’s a fine line to walk. I myself err on the side of the patient and not the crime scene. Like I said above though…we don’t KNOW what the ff’s saw.
Doesn’t the state of Georgia have protocols that EMS personnel are required to follow in such circumstances? If they do and a violation is identified wouldn’t removal of EMT or paramedic certification a possibility? What is with these lazy people who seems to be finding their way into the fire service? Unwilling to get off the rig to search for a reported structure fire … unwilling to access and physically evaluate a patient to check for presence of pulse and respirations?
Firstly, I’m not sure if homicide victims can be an organ donor due to the need for an autopsy to be performed (someone please correct me if I’m wrong).
They described a “catastrophic brain injury” according to the news report. That said they should still have checked for a pulse…but then what? He has a pulse, they work him, he goes to the hospital, he “survives”, he’s put on life support, he’s taken off life support at some later stage and either dies or is a vegetable for the rest of his life…sucks if you do and sucks if you don’t !
Mister Beasley brings up a ,in my view, horrible reality in todays fire/ems/police service. With today’s economics, the civil service job is looking better and better. For those dept.’s still expanding it’s a job with pretty good benifits and very is stable in todays job market. Gone are the days of people wanting the job because of some type of positive passion for it. Maybe these ff’s in Atlanta have lost that passion due to the hard times that dept. has felt. Maybe they just made a error in judgement…haven’t we all? Maybe it was so bad that there was no mistaking it to be a crime scene.
We don’t know what they saw when they looked over the counter-certain signs of death are blatantly obvious. Somehow everything would have been better if they had contaminated the crime scene just to “look like” they were performing EMS? Take away the video camera and no one even questions this.
As far as laziness, many factors may be in play. Some could be poor leadership, budget cuts, lack of performance incentives, burnout due to a heavy workload or excessive OT caused by layoffs, etc. Add in the frustration caused by the daily runs to “customers” who are perfectly capable of driving themselves to the doctor or walking a block but don’t care because they aren’t paying the bill anyway. Those aren’t a big deal once in a while, but when they are 7 of the 15 runs a day you get, it can be make it tempting to cut some corners if it will get you some downtime.