Read about the Deutsche Bank scandal here, here and here
Almost five years after the deaths of FDNY firefighters Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia word comes that Graffagnino’s widow has reached a $10 million settlement with the city and the contractor over safety issues at the Deutsche Bank building. The building caught fire on August 18, 2007 while it was in the process of being demolished after being damaged in the September 11th attacks. The two firefighters became trapped in a stairwell. Firefighter Beddia’s family previously reached a reported $6 million settlement.
Nearly five years after the tragedy, Bovis Lend Lease has agreed to pay Joseph Graffagnino’s widow, Linda, and her two small children $9 million, while the city has signed off on covering another $1 million, documents obtained by the Daily News show.
The settlement still must be approved by a Manhattan Supreme Court justice, which is expected at a hearing set for Monday.
The settlement will mark the final chapter in a painful saga that exposed outrageous incompetence by the contractors tasked with tearing down the wrecked office tower and their government overseers.
Two former East Spencer firefighters and a former police officer were found not guilty this week during a non-jury trial five months after a junior firefighter was shocked with a stun gun.
The incident was said to have occurred at a department Christmas party. The two firefighters — former Chief Shane Cranfield and former Assistant Chief Allen Carlyle — were accused of using a stun gun on junior firefighter John Resino, 18.
According to arrest warrants, the stun gun came from former East Spencer Police Officer James Lambeth.
“I want to say thank you to all my true friends who stood behind me,” Shane Cranfield told WBTV Tuesday afternoon. When asked if had been confident about the outcome, Cranfield said “I had my doubts, I knew I didn’t do it, but I still.”
Cranfield said he believed inconsistencies in Resino’s story led to the not guilty verdict. Even though he was found not guilty, Cranfield said the accusations have taken their toll.
“I have lost my position as the Chief of the East Spencer fire department, as well as my part time paid position. My reputation, career, and life have been ran threw the mud and destroyed. I have been blacked balled throughout the county and shunned by people I have known for years and considered to be my brothers. Along with me, two other people, firefighter Alan Carlyle and officer James Lambeth, have also faced the same ridicule and public embarrassment as myself.”
A judicial official says four firefighters in the French capital have been preliminarily charged with gang raping a colleague. Eight other firefighters received preliminary charges of aggravated violence.
The incident purportedly happened on a bus ride back from an athletic competition on May 6. A second firefighter has also alleged he was attacked.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity citing fire department policy, said Saturday that one of those charged remains in custody.
The official says the accused have claimed they were carrying out an initiation ritual common with new recruits and deny there was any sexual aggression.
Nicolas Cellupica, a lawyer for the two plaintiffs, has called for other firefighters who have suffered similar rituals to come forward.
As part of the alleged hazing incident, the young man was stripped and bitten, according to Le Parisien newspaper.
When he protested, several other young firemen pinned him down while one man sexually assaulted him. According to the claims, an officer was present but did not intervene.
Commentators say the affair threatens to damage the reputation of the Paris brigade, which has an 8,500-strong staff of men and women. Firefighting is one of France’s best-regarded professions and the Paris brigade is highly thought of.
Judge Garrett Page in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania wasn’t happy that 55-year-old Donald Pierce of Philadelphia didn’t think the barricades blocking a flooded road in the Willow Grove area during Tropical Storm Lee weren’t for him. After Pierce drove around that silly obstruction in the road he soon needed help. Of course it was up to firefighters to save his butt. Which they did.
But a police officer who said he saw Pierce drive around the barriers in his red minivan charged the man with three counts of recklessly endangering others and reckless driving. The three counts were one each for the three firefighters who risked their lives in an attempt make sure Pierce walked away from the mess he created for himself.
According to Margaret Gibbons at PhillyBurbs.com, as part of an agreement, Donald Pierce entered a guilty plea to a charge of disorderly conduct. Judge Page yesterday fined Pierce $300 and ordered him to make a $1000 donation to the Willow Grove Fire Company and send letters of apology to the three firefighters who tried to reach him.
Here’s a description of the rescue from PhillyBurbs.com:
The vehicle drove into the flooded roadway and got about halfway through the swift moving flood waters when it became disabled. The force of the water pushed the van to the side of the road and up against a guardrail.
Three Willow Grove firefighters, trained in water rescues, entered the flooded roadway to rescue the driver but, after getting about halfway to the van and in water up to their hips, had to abandon that attempt because they were in danger of being swept downstream because of the swift flowing floodwaters.
A second attempt, using an Enterprise Fire Co. ladder truck, was successful.
On Tuesday morning Minneapolis Police served a search warrant at Fire Station 19 at 200 Ontario Ave SE at the University of Minnesota East Bank. A 20-year veteran firefighter was arrested along with a woman who was with him at the firehouse and a man who was parked in a car nearby. Police called it part of an ongoing drug investigation. News reports indicate the firefighter had a previous run in with another police agency over drugs.
Lawrence Anthony Wajda, Jr, 42, of Coon Rapids, a member of the Minneapolis Fire Department since 1991, was booked into the Hennepin County Jail shortly after noon.
Officers also arrested Autumn Ronning, 33, after finding her with suspected ecstacy pills. Ronning is being held not only on the narcotics charge, but also on a felony arrest warrant from Ramsey county and an arrest warrant from Anoka county, according to online jail records and the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office.
Suspected methamphetamine was found on Wajda at the time of his arrest, according to police. A 33-year-old New Hope woman, who is not a firefighter, was also arrested at the station in possession of suspected Ecstasy, McCarty said. A 37-year-old St. Paul man found with suspected marijuana in a nearby vehicle also was taken into custody but later released. Wajda and the woman were in the Hennepin County jail on Tuesday night.
This is at least the second time Wajda has been in trouble over drug charges. Next month, he goes on trial in Anoka County in connection with a traffic stop where he was allegedly found with marijuana and a meth pipe on him.
Statement from Minneapolis Fire Chief John Fruetel:
I expect that personnel in this department maintain the highest professional and ethical standards. I have no doubt that the women and men of the Minneapolis Fire Department serve the people of this city with courage, integrity and respect. Unfortunately it is cases like this where the actions of a single individual can cast a shadow on the entire department.
Three Atlanta Fire Rescue firefighters, two white and one black, sued the city three months after an April 2010 promotional exam. They did so as part of a class action lawsuit on behalf of 160 others who took the same test to become a lieutenant in the department.
Their claim, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Joel Anderson, is that five black firefighters who were part of the same study group, scored among the top eight on the test because they were provided answers ahead of time by two assistant fire chiefs and members of Brothers Combined, the Atlanta black firefighters association.
The paper reports the city could have to invalidate the old test and provide another. They also face the possibility of providing back pay and attorney's fees. There was a hold placed on the promotions of the five firefighters in question because of the lawsuit.
Atlanta officials are considering an appeal, according to city attorney Robert Godfrey, who believes that ultimately the city will be vindicated.
The lawsuit also accused the city's Human Resources Department of conducting a "superficial at best" review of the cheating allegations. "The DHR review was nothing more than a whitewash," the plaintiffs alleged.
Godfrey dismissed those allegations, saying the plaintiff's case "basically centered on the idea that you couldn't be an African-American in 2010 and do well on a test."
Parks said the verdict should be a warning to city officials that they need to address corruption within the fire department.
"My clients took on the top four people in the department," (attorney for the plaintiffs Lee) Parks said, referring to top Fire Rescue administrators named in the suit. "Think what would have happened to them if they lost."
When I first saw the story above a little more than a year ago, I thought it was unfair to the firefighter who was featured, and missed the real story by failing to track down the people who should be answering the questions. In general, I thought it was a poor job done by the reporter on what was and is a legitimate story.
The person featured in the story is DC Fire & EMS Department Lieutenant Richard Lehan. The report focused on Lt. Lehan's income from the District of Columbia. He was the fire department's top money maker in the overtime category. Similar stories have been done in many cities.
Lehan's feelings about the report were obviously a lot stronger than mine. He filed a defamation lawsuit against WTTG-TV. DC Superior Court Judge Rufus G. King III has now dismissed that suit based on the District of Columbia's new anti-SLAPP law.
SLAPP stands for "strategic lawsuits against public participation". Wikipedia has one of the clearest explanations of a SLAPP I could find:
A lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.
Anti-SLAPP laws are generally intended to protect a citizen's right of free speech and, as in this case, have also been used by the news media to do the same.
Richard Lehan's lawsuit is the first dismissal under DC's law.
Drew E. Shenkman and Charles D. Tobin, with Holland and Knight LLP, have written an article about this case. I have forwarded it to FireLawBlog.com's Curt Varone to see if I can encourage him to translate it into English from legalese in one of his columns. Actually it is not that bad, but Curt, a lawyer and firefighter, will do a better job explaining what this all really means. In the meantime here's an excerpt from the article:
In June 2011, Lehan sued for defamation and defamation per se. He alleged that the station's figures were inaccurate and that the report's use of phrases like "racked up" and "month-after-month" were defamatory. He also alleged that the report that he and his brother controlled the assignment of overtime was false.
The station filed a special motion to dismiss under the District's anti-SLAPP statute, D.C. Code §16-5501, et seq., enacted in March 2011. D.C. is the 29th jurisdiction with a law permitting early challenges to SLAPP lawsuits. Under the D.C. statute, if a defendant establishes the lawsuit arose out of "acts in furtherance of the right of advocacy on issues of public interest," the burden shifts to the plaintiff to demonstrate a "likelihood of success" on the merits. If the plaintiff fails, the statute requires the court to dismiss the lawsuit and the judge may award reasonable attorneys' fees.
Now, my complaints about this story have nothing to do with defamation, though I thought there was a fair amount of innuendo with no smoking gun to back it up. If I had been doing the story, I'm sure I too would have featured Lt. Lehan, the top overtime earner. That's a fact important to the story, especially since his later earnings appeared to violate a DC law limiting the amount of overtime a firefighter or police officer can make.
But since there was no indication in reporter Roby Chavez's story (Chavez is no longer with the station) that Lt Lehan was putting in for overtime he didn't earn, my questions would have been directed elsewhere. Instead of spending a lot of time staking out the quarters of Engine 30 trying to get Lt. Lehan to talk, I would have been tracking down, and if necessary staking out, former Chief Dennis Rubin and his assistant chiefs who were ultimately responsible for how the overtime money was spent. They are the people who should have been answering the questions from the reporter and those raised by the council member interviewed in the report.
It isn't just DC. I have brought this same point up many times before elsewhere in the country. If the firefighter or other public servant is legitimately being paid for hours worked, the focus should not be on the person receiving the fat paycheck, but rather the person writing it.
Obviously Judge King has judged that this TV news story was not defamation. That's out of my expertise (though, when I first heard about the lawsuit from a friend, I expressed doubts about its success). I will, however, judge that it was a poor and misguided journalistic effort.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I have known Lt. Lehan and his brother Ed (also mentioned in the report) for a long time. I like both of them and they both have been kind to me through the years. That said, to my knowledge, I have never talked to either one of them about the story or the lawsuit, and am basing my opinion solely on my experience as a TV reporter who covered the fire service.
In addition, I have some very good friends (or at least did) at WTTG-TV. The station has some wonderful TV journalists on its staff. My comments focus solely on this one story and do not reflect on the news operation as a whole.
This story from last June should have made my 2011 year end review and won a STATty for the biggest loser caught on video. We featured Dustin Anderson's confrontation with a Vancouver firefighter during the rioting that occurred after the Canucks were defeated in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Anderson was interviewed by CBC News after the video developed quite an audience and said:
"I went to him for help because I had been pepper sprayed. He told me to go home… He was trying to get in my face."
Anderson will now have the opportunity to tell his story to the judge after being charged with hitting the firefighter.
Dustin Anderson also told CBC News in June that he felt "horrible" and that he can't leave his home "because everybody recognizes me". The charges are bringing a new round of publicity for Anderson which may help everyone by keeping the man home bound again. Make sure you check out the Arrest Dustin Anderson Facebook group for more on this upstanding citizen.
Thirty-seven-year-old Shane Cranfield, who was a part-time employee of the East Spencer Fire Department in North Carolina, was fired yesterday. In addition, 29-year-old Assistant Chief Allen Carlyle, a former chief of the department, has been told not to return as a volunteer. This comes after the incident last month where police say the men shocked an18-year-old firefighter with a Taser nine times during a fire department Christmas party.
Cranfield and Carlyle are both facing assault charges. A town police officer who allowed his Taser to be used in the incident resigned and is also facing criminal charges.
In a dismissal letter to Cranfield, Town Administrator Macon Sammons Jr. said leaders must serve as role models and set standards. They need “the wisdom, the courage and the judgment” to guide others in the right direction, he said.
“Instead, as our fire chief, you were the ringleader of an incident which created community disdain toward the reputation of our fire department and a major source of embarrassment to the town,” Sammons wrote.
A similar letter to Carlyle is more frank.
“Your behavior in this incident was abusive and totally unacceptable,” Sammons wrote. “Further, we believe that you have become a negative influence within our fire department.”
(Firefighter/paramedic) Avis Langford-Brannon, (Battalion Chief) Beverly Prye and (Battalion Chief) Sandra Richards have been indicted on charges of forgery, tampering with evidence and aggravated perjury.
All three — employees of the Memphis Fire Department — have surrendered to authorities. All three were jailed on bond of $20,000 each; Richards remained in jail Sunday.
According to the document, Jones left his estate, worth about $100,000, to his longtime girlfriend, Sandra Richards. Jones and Richards had both worked as Battalion Chiefs within the fire department.
Jones' adult children later took legal action saying that the will was a phony. A judge agreed earlier this year.
This is truly a fascinating and different story out of Berea, Ohio. It is a bit complicated and required two readings of James McCarty's article for The Plain Dealer before I understood it. Let me try to explain it chronologically.
In 2010, Williams Phelps, a 17-year veteran of the Berea Fire Department who is black, was offered and turned down a promotion to lieutenant. The reason Phelps gave in a lawsuit recently filed in federal court, is that the promotion, at the time, was based on race and not merit. In that suit, William Phelps refers to the interview for the job he had with Safety Director Kenneth Adams, who is also black. From The Plain Dealer:
"If I promote you first, you need to be able to deal with the situation of being promoted ahead of two candidates who scored higher than you," Phelps quoted Adams as saying. He went on to quote Adams as saying that if he didn't promote Phelps, "people in the community" would ask why he didn't give the job to the black candidate.
Adams rejected Phelps' version of the process, and denied making the statements quoted in Phelps' lawsuit.
This year there have been two more firefighters promoted to lieutenant. Though Phelps says his exam scores placed him in one of the top two in line for those jobs, he was not offered a promotion. Phelps contends now that the promotion is based solely on merit and not the color of his skin, he wasn't offered the job. He believes he was passed over as retaliation for what happened last year.
In addition, Firefighter/Paramedic Phelps, has been one of the faces of the Vote No on Issue 2 campaign in Ohio. Issue 2, which will be decided on Tuesday, is a referendum on Senate Bill 5, backed by Gov. John Kasich, limiting collective bargaining rights for public employees. Phelps lent his face to the ad below that has been seen on billboards around the state.
KDKA-TV describes it as a legal battle pitting the City of Pittsburgh versus the City of Pittsburgh. In the story above you will learn that some city fire trucks were ticketed for parking at spaces reserved for the mayor and City Council members on Tuesday. The firefighters had stopped by for their flu shots. A police officer, aware of regular complaints by the city officials about people who park in their spaces, slapped tickets on the rigs.
The trucks came from the Homewood station with full crews, and according to their union attorney with the best intentions.
“They had parked outside the City County Building, they were supposed to get a flu shot to avoid sick days,” said Josh Bloom, the firefighters’ attorney. “As they went in… the fire trucks and fire engines were given parking tickets.”
“I suppose the city will have to go to court against itself,” said Bloom. “The firefighters do not own the fire trucks, so the city was written a ticket today.”
A possible solution to this problem emerges in the video below that shows a Montreal police officer ticketing a fire engine parked in front of a hydrant (police NEVER do that). But I am not sure I would recommend that firefighters respond this way to a parking ticket (but if you are planning to do so, please alert me so I can bring my video camera). The clip is one of a series of videos involving "firefighters" and a Candid Camera type of approach.
In May we told you about an ugly incident that occurred during a wetdown on October 9 last year at the Sea Bright Fire Department in New Jersey (video above is of the wetdown but not the fight). One firefighter accused two other firefighters, who are brothers and officers in the department, of assault. Peter Lang IV, age 33, and Steven Lang, 25, also accused 28-year-old Justin Hughes of attacking them. The Lang brothers, who had been scheduled to be promoted (Peter to assistant chief and Steven to second lieutenant), also accused Hughes of assault. The pending trial delayed those promotions and threatened to keep the Langs from ever being officers in the department.
On Wednesday the trio heard their fate from Judge James Berube. He found all three guilty of assault and fined them $500 and ordered them to perform 100 hours of community service, which could be accomplished by their work as volunteer firefighters. The judge also arranged it so the brothers are not barred from promotion.
In addition, the judge believes that Hughes was the instigator of the second and more serious of two fights by saying that Steven Lang, who had served as a Marine in Iraq, should have been killed there. According to RedBankGreen.com, which has been following this story, the judge said, “Your words were so serious, so sensitive… they are so inflammatory that they constituted provocation.”
Here's more from reporter John T. Ward:
Berube’s ruling came after municipal Prosecutor Mike Halfacre, who also serves as Fair Haven mayor, backed away from a demand that the Langs be barred for life from serving as officers.
Though he said the pair had “disgraced and discredited” the Sea Bright Fire Department, and though they appeared to have rallied a “good-old-boy network” of support that included what he termed “suspect” letters of support, Halfacre said he would not press for forefeiture because state Department of Health and Human Services rules would have mandated the Langs lose their EMT licenses as well.
That's Daniel Schmidt on the left in the picture taken by Arizona's Pinal County Sheriff's Office after Schmidt's arrest. The picture on the right was a self portrait by Schmidt as he modeled a helmet from Regional Fire Rescue in Casa Grande.
The picture on the right lead directly to the picture on the left being taken. It is another story of someone being so obsessed with letting the world know their every move through social media they lose common sense (not that there appears there was much there to start with).
Last Sunday, four Kenwood radios, two pick-head axes, a helmet and an LED flashlight were taken from a Regional Fire Rescue fire engine that was parked outside at a fire station in Casa Grande. The stolen items were valued at $1,600.
On Monday, Pinal County Sheriff's detectives distributed flyers throughout the neighborhood in hopes of catching the person responsible.
Deputies didn't have to do much more than that because someone phoned Regional Fire Rescue Chief Steve Kerber that they knew who did the crime. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out. News reports indicate the 23-year-old Schmidt used texting and his Facebook status to let his friends know that he stole gear from the fire department and provided the photographic evidence to prove it.
According to the reports, Schmidt told deputies he was drunk when he stole the stuff from the fire truck. But my question is was he sober when he posted it the evidence on Facebook?
This may be a very disappointing "must see video" for many of you. No real action and it isn't a fire. But it is exactly what I needed to get me out of my funk after viewing the series of videos I posted Sunday of police officers around the country who have a funny interpretation of protecting and defending the Constitution.
The video posted to YouTube last November stars Badge #1093 of the Oceanside (CA) Police Department, Cpl. Matthew J. Lyons. I urge all of you to watch how Cpl. Lyons reacts to a man carrying a camera who records the entire interaction with the officer. Besides the camera in his left hand, the man, who only gives his name as Jeremy, has a gun on his side.
Listen to Cpl. Lyons' words and watch his actions. The officer is also a 22-year veteran of the U.S. Marines. He knows and respects Jeremy's right to not only carry an unconcealed, unloaded weapon, but to also carry and use a camera that is not concealed.
Now, compare this to what you saw from the Suffolk County (NY) Police Department sergeant (below) who arrested a credentialed news photographer on Friday. Or the officers you see in the other videos I posted on Sunday. If you were a police chief or commanding a squad of officers, would you want on your team cops who only uphold the part of the Constitution that fits their purposes or those who believe in the entire document?
Jeremy, who apparently gets stopped quite a bit with the gun on his belt walking around Oceanside, has recorded other transactions with police officers. They are posted on this YouTube channel. While the other cops aren't quite as charismatic as Cpl. Lyons, the best I can see tell is none of Oceanside's officers seems to get bent out of shape because a citizen has a camera in their face. My guess is that comes from good training.
Corporal Lyons you are my hero. You not only served our country as a Marine, you serve the citizens of Oceanside by keeping them safe and safeguarding their rights. Thank you Doug Walton for finding this one and sending it our way.
Commissioner Richard Dormer said in a statement Monday that there is an internal review of the incident and all officers will undergo media relations refresher training. The announcement came about an hour after the Press Club of Long Island, a local trade group, called for the charges to be dropped.
“I am working with the Suffolk County District Attorney to have the arrest nullified,” Dormer said. “The police department believes in keeping an open line of communication with the media and we will be reviewing the department’s policy concerning involvement with the news media.”
And in Las Vegas, an internal review of previous case we told you about found that Officer Derek Colling violated several department policies, including using excessive force, when he subdued and arrested a man who was taking video from his own driveway of police responding to a burglary call. Here's the latest story and here is our previous coverage. The video from that incident is below.
William Land, a ten-year veteran of the Memphis Fire Department, is currently out on bond after his arrest during a fire in his Southaven, Mississippi home (Desoto County, a suburb of Memphis) around 4:00 Saturday morning. Land is charged with interfering with firefighters and failing to listen to police officers when his kitchen caught fire. Officers say Land's 14-year-old son tried to interfere with his father's arrest and was also taken into custody.
According to police, land was upset about the fire department’s response time, and let them know it. They say he wasn't wearing any protective gear, and yet refused to wait outside.
"They kept asking him to leave and he basically told them he wasn't going to leave." (From Southaven PD's Lt. Mark Little.)
Land faces charges of disorderly conduct and failing to obey a police officer, obstructing operations on a fire scene and disobeying an officer on the scene of a fire. His son faces a juvenile summons for disorderly conduct and failure to obey officers.
The video above was posted to YouTube about an incident that occurred on Friday in Suffolk County, New York. It came with the following description:
This was the end of a police chase and the Sgt. doesn't want video coverage from a credentialed member of the press. The photog asks how far to move back but the sgt. says no you can't shoot it at all. Notice the road is open to traffic, there are people without a camera that are standing there and even some kids walk straight through the scene. The photog moves a block away and shoots from the next street over and that's when he's arrested and charged with Obstruction of Governmental Administration….how can you obstruct from a block away.
LongIslandPress.com says the man behind the camera is Phil Datz, who works for Stringer News Service in New York:
Suffolk County police confirmed that Datz was arrested and said he was charged with obstruction of governmental administration. He was taken to the Fifth Precinct stationhouse in Patchogue where he was fingerprinted and had a mugshot taken. He was later released.
“We are reviewing the circumstances surrounding the arrest” of Datz, a police spokesman said. Datz can be heard referring to the cop as a “Sergeant” but the name and rank of the arresting officer was not released.
Ryan said a police officer apologized to him at the precinct, but told him nothing could be done about the arrest because Datz had already been booked.
From experience in writing about this topic, I am sure there are some who will laugh and say the only mistake the police officer made is he didn't destroy the camera and video. I find humor in lots of things many others find inappropriate. But this doesn't make me laugh. To me, it is extremely chilling and very sad.
As many of you who read this electronic rag know, I am very biased when it comes to this issue. I make no apologies for being hard-core pro-First Amendment. And I am kind of fond of that whole Constitution thing.
I know some who disagree with my position will start telling me how awful the news media is (and some in the news media are awful, as recently shown by the News Corp. debacle which now has possible connections to 9-11 victims). And others will tell me I don't know what's not on this video that the terrible man with the camera did. So, let me be clear I am only basing my opinion on what I see in this raw video.
What the police officer had to say on the video and the actions he took are plenty enough for me to once again point out that leaving decisions of what is and isn't okay for the public to see in the hands of uniformed and armed agents of our government is quite a scary scenario for the future of our country. And those who think these actions by police are just fine and call yourselves supporters and protectors of our way of life really need to study a little history and look closely at the countries where government does control the news media. This is my preemptive strike telling you to stop making excuses for people in uniform who are only selectively supporting the Constitution they are sworn to protect.
Below, are some other stories in recent months that help fuel my worries. Each has its own set of circumstances. I am sure many of you who feel differently than I do can find excuses for the actions of the police that will support your own interpretation of our rights. But I have to tell you it's not how they taught it to me in school.
Above is a video from the May 12 arrest of Emily Good in Rochester, New York. This case has received national attention. Good, who is described in news reports as an activist, shot the video of police activity while standing on her front lawn. The District Attorney quickly dropped charges against Good. The union representing the police has a different view on this and believes the safety of officers is what's at stake here. They also say that officers involved in Good's arrest have been threatened (read and watch that story).
James Sheppard, Rochester's police chief, ordered investigations of this incident and one where police ticketed cars belonging to supporters of Good gathered at a meeting (video here). Chief Sheppard told the Democrat and Chronicle on July 5 that he is waiting for results of the investigations before determining if there was any misconduct by Officer Mario Masic, who arrested Good. Here's more of the chief's comments::
He said he thought the video showed that Masic acted professionally, and said the stop that precipitated Good's arrest — the activity partly filmed by Good — was an example of "proactive" policing.
Police said there were suspected gang members in the car. No one was arrested from the vehicle.
Sheppard said the incident does show the need to remind police officers that they shouldn't be concerned if someone videotapes them without interference.
Chief Sheppard is exactly right. A lot of this is about training. Not just for police, but for all first responders who now have to do their jobs with cameras shooting them from all angles. As I have mentioned before, some EMS providers are using cameras during training to make sure when they hit the streets they can do their jobs competently despite someone taking pictures. I have watched law enforcement train for decades on how to ignore taunts and other actions of protesters during large demonstrations. Wouldn't it be smart to the same with cameras?
A story by Jack Minor in Colorado's Greeley Gazette looks at the attempt by some since 9-11 to declare photography illegal. It has some interesting comments by Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner who confirms that his city does not have any law prohibiting taping of police officers (by the way, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Secret Service, the Federal Protective Service, the FBI, the U.S. Capitol Police and most every other law enforcement agencies in the Washington, DC area confirmed the same for me when I was a TV reporter working on a number of stories about this post 9-11 issue) :
Garner said he was amazed at how a lawful act such as videotaping could be considered illegal. Garner went on to say that he tells young officers to, "Do your job so that if you were being taped and the tape was shown to your loved ones you would never be ashamed."
Great words to live by for all of us in the digital video age.
Above is the story of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a man taking pictures of an arrest in your Nation's Capital on July 3 (what is it everyone was celebrating the next day?). Click here to read more about this incident in Georgetown.
When you look at the story above from June 19, I think you will understand why the DC police officer in the July 3 Georgetown incident believes citizens have no right to go about their business unmolested when they are taking pictures of cops in action on a public street. Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Chief Diane Groomes explains why it is okay for officers to confiscate your camera when you shoot an arrest scene. It leaves you wondering if the department will start taking the cameras of all news photographers who show up where people are being cuffed and stuffed. If not, what's the difference? And who is the press these days anyway? (For the record, as puzzled as I am about her comments, I have a great deal of respect for Chief Groomes and her treatment of the press based on my experience as a reporter in Washington.)
The video above is also from your Nation's Capital. This time the scene is not on a public street, but inside a public meeting of the DC Taxicab Commission. The officers are with the United States Park Police. In fact, the meeting is at a U.S. Park Police facility. Is it only me who finds it ironic that the people who seem the most outraged by the arrest of the reporter are taxi drivers who are immigrants from countries where the press and the citizenry don't have the freedoms that this country guarantees? Reporter Tom Sherwood wrote about this June 22 case here and has more to say here.
Now, before any of you make decisions about what my politics are are or start believing I don't support law enforcement or possibly mom, apple pie and the flag, watch the interview below with the reporter who took the video above. He was also arrested by U.S. Park Police. Notice who is doing the interview and completely supports the reporter's actions and thinks police were wrong. Judge Andrew P. Napolitano is the senior judicial analyst for the Fox News Channel. He also hosts the show Freedom Watch on the Fox Business Network where this interview took place.
An interview with New Haven Fire Department's Lt. Frank Ricci and city lawyers on yesterday's announcement of a settlement that brings an end to this seven-year battle.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A group of firefighters who won a reverse discrimination case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009 have been awarded about $2 million in damages from the city of New Haven, attorneys said Thursday.
The Supreme Court ruled that officials violated white firefighters' civil rights when they threw out 2003 promotion tests results because too few minorities did well. The firefighters returned to U.S. District Court in Connecticut seeking back pay, damages and legal fees.
Court papers indicate 20 firefighters have accepted offers from the city for back pay, additional pension benefits and interest. A trial was scheduled to start Aug. 26.
Attorneys for the city told The Associated Press on Thursday that the firefighters will receive about $2 million as well as pension improvements and the city will pay their attorneys' fees of about $3 million.
"I think it's a fair offer," said Richard Roberts, an attorney who represented the city. "We're glad we can move ahead and put this behind us."
Karen Torre, attorney for the firefighters, says the process should be completed in a few days.
Torre argued in court in 2009 that the firefighters were entitled to back pay with interest for long-overdue promotions, several categories of damages and attorney fees. She said the firefighters were subject to "the humiliation and economic hardship of prolonged career stagnancy in a rancorous atmosphere fostered by raw racial divides."
The case became an issue in confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who ruled against the white firefighters when she served on a federal appeals court.
During the entire time I was considered young no one ever described me as a "quality young man" or a "solid young man" who is "a credit to his family". Maybe that's because I was never accused of being drunk, stealing a fire truck from my fire company and wrecking it.
I am guessing until 22-year-old Clayton Hardon III's July 19 arrest on those very charges there weren't people walking around saying, "Oh Clayton, he's such a quality, solid, young man who is a credit to his family". But now that the Dreadnaught Fire Company volunteer firefighter (or should there be a "former" in front of that?) has had his first court appearance, his lawyer, a former Rhode Island Speaker of the House, is saying just that about Hardon.
I certainly understand and respect that our judicial system considers young Mr. Hardon innocent until proven guilty and it may just be a coincidence that Hardon was found by police near where the special hazards truck overturned, with neck and head injuries and had to appear in court in a neck brace. John Harwood may be a good lawyer who will do well for a client who, for all we know, may have uncharacteristically made a bad mistake in an otherwise blemish free life (but Mr. Harwood wouldn't even admit that scenario posed by a reporter because the facts of the case still need to be sorted out).
I am of the belief if you are going in front of the cameras during a news event you should have something to say. Don't waste everyone's time. It is great that Mr. Harwood took a moment to be nice to the reporters and gave them a sound bite or two. Maybe Mr. Harwood is trying to influence the potential jury pool that is out there in TV land or is just trying to work on repairing the young man's reputation. But I don't think most people want to hear another lawyer who can't say anything definitive about a case under questioning by reporters.
If you are going to cite attorney-client privilege and can't or won't answer the basic questions maybe it is the time to respectfully decline to do an interview (don't run, don't hide). Maybe it is better to talk when you can tell us that either your client was kidnapped in a fire truck and alcohol was poured down his throat and he was left by the kidnappers in the overturned rig on someone's front lawn (years ago that might have been a standard initiation at some departments I have been familiar with) or that he made a bad mistake, is truly sorry and will work to make this right. Then you are saying something.
When Lt. Col. Karl Granzow Jr.'s office at the headquarters of the Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department in Largo, Maryland was raided by the FBI in September, 2008 we were lead to believe two things by various sources: this was connected to a development project known as Greenbelt Station (which at one time was to include a fire station); the raids were just a stopping off point on the trail that would bring about the downfall of Prince Georges' County Executive Jack Johnson.
Today, almost three years later, comes word that Karl Granzow entered guilty pleas in March as part of the same corruption probe that resulted in Johnson's arrest. Granzow retired from PGFD in April, 2009.
The guilty plea of a retired Prince George’s County fire official was unsealed Monday in federal court, linking him to the large-scale corruption probe that has taken down developers, public officials and police officers in the county over the last several months.
Karl Granzow, 46, pleaded guilty in secret to conspiring to commit extortion and to income tax evasion on March 11. Mr. Granzow, a former lieutenant colonel in the county fire department, admitted in his guilty plea to partnering with county developers for more than 10 years to bribe public officials for development favors related to the Greenbelt Station development project.
Granzow, who was an official responsible for the fire department's Management Services Command at the time of the briberies, had ownership interests in Greenbelt Metropark, a company trying to build a mixed-use project near the Greenbelt Metro Station.
For more than 10 years, Granzow and co-conspirators offered state and local officials money, meals, drinks, trip expenses, campaign contributions, hotel rooms, airline tickets and more in exchange for rulings that would favor their development projects, according to Granzow's guilty plea filed under seal on March 30.
From the AP:
He also admitted bribing public officials in exchange for acts that benefited a development near the Greenbelt Metro station. Granzow’s co-conspirators, developers Patrick Ricker and Daniel Colton, have also pleaded guilty. Their pleas were unsealed after former County Executive Jack Johnson pleaded guilty to corruption.
Federal sentencing guidelines call for Granzow to receive between 2 ½ and three years in prison. No sentencing date has been scheduled.
Remember the case of Eddie Velarde, the chief of Northern New Mexico's Velarde Volunteer Fire Department?
Velarde was arrested last March while in command of a brush fire. He was charged with obstructing a sheriff's officer, disorderly conduct and concealing his identify.
Geoff Grammer at The New Mexican reports that Chief Velarde received a directed verdict of not guilty on Friday. It occurred after Rio Arriba County Sheriff's Lt. Adam Archuleta presented his the to a magistrate. The decision came before Velarde's attorney called any witnesses. Now Velarde's attorney is considering a wrongful arrest lawsuit.:
Rio Arriba County Sheriff's Lt. Adam Archuleta on March 29 arrested Velarde, 54, at the scene of a small brush fire in Lyden, in which Velarde's department was the lead agency working the blaze. According to police reports, Archuleta arrested Velarde because he was creating general hysteria at the scene that was doing more harm than good.
"He was calling for a mass evacuation (of surrounding residents) with all these agencies responding under the false belief that this was a much larger emergency," said Jake Arnold, a spokesman for Sheriff Tommy Rodella, in March. "Numerous times at the scene, he was yelling about people being trapped when the fire was nowhere near any structure."
Within 10 minutes of Velarde's arrest, Arnold said in March, the 2- to 3-acre fire was contained.
NEW YORK (AP) — A construction company supervisor was acquitted of manslaughter and all other charges Tuesday in a blaze that killed two firefighters at a condemned bank tower at ground zero.
Jurors delivered their verdict for Salvatore DePaola, but the panel was still deliberating for Jeffrey Melofchik. The judge hasn't yet rendered a verdict for a third defendant and the company.
"I haven't slept in four years," DePaola said after the verdict.
"There are people who didn't do their jobs and they should have been up here," he said, pointing a finger at the fire department.
A worker's careless smoking sparked an August 2007 blaze that tore through nine floors of the former bank building, which was being taken down after being damaged and contaminated with toxic debris in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Firefighters Robert Beddia, 53, and Joseph P. Graffagnino, 33, died after being trapped in black, choking smoke and running out of air in their oxygen tanks.
Prosecutors said the break in the firefighting pipe, called a standpipe, was the crucial factor in their deaths. With the standpipe useless, it took firefighters about an hour to get water on the flames, letting the blaze build into a lethal inferno, prosecutors said.
They said Alvo, DePaola and Melofchik knew the pipe had broken about eight months before, when workers took down some braces that were holding it to the basement ceiling. The supports were proving stubbornly hard to scrub of asbestos, and the bosses were under pressure to speed the cleanup to keep it from going over budget, prosecutors said.
So after the break, the men had a 42-foot section of standpipe cut up and carted away and did nothing to repair or flag it, though Melofchik continued to sign daily reports saying the building's fire-suppression system was working, prosecutors said.
"They did the thing that killed those firefighters," Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann told jurors in a closing argument. "The evidence … woven together, paints a mosaic of overwhelming guilt — that but for these wholly reckless acts, these firefighters would be alive today."
But defense lawyers said the men didn't recognize the pipe's importance, and the disaster was a product of a web of shortsighted regulating and hazards beyond their control.
"This was a horrible, perfect storm of bad circumstance," defense lawyer Edward J.M. Little said in a closing argument. The two firefighters, he said, "died horrible deaths, but it wasn't because of anything the defendants did."
After the blaze, it emerged that the fire department hadn't inspected the building for more than a year, though it was required to do so every 15 days.
Meanwhile, building, environmental and labor inspectors hadn't realized that some measures meant to contain toxins could thwart firefighting. Plywood stairwell barriers slowed firefighters' progress, and a fan system kept smoke in and pulled it down, instead of letting it rise and escape.
The city and Melofchik's employer, general contractor Bovis Lend Lease, acknowledged errors. In response, the Fire Department created dozens of inspection and auditing jobs, and Bovis agreed to finance a $10 million memorial fund for slain firefighters' families, among other responses.
Meanwhile, the building lingered for almost a decade as a grim reminder of the attacks. The last of it was finally removed in February..
A man claims that forcible sodomy is a "prerequisite" for volunteers at the Piermont Fire Department. He says that when his teen-age son volunteered, firefighters "forcibly caused [him] to engage in acts of sodomy, all against his will and consent," and that this "ritual" is "a prerequisite" for all people who want to join.
Mark Bernstein sued the Village of Piermont and three named firefighters in Federal Court, on behalf of his 17-year-old son.
Bernstein claims the village knew about the hazing ritual and "took no steps to prevent this rite of passage and as such acquiesced in its implementation."
He claims that when his son volunteered for the force, in August 2010, he was "battered, physically restrained, pushed, shoved and forced into submission," and that the sexual abuse left him "physically and psychologically ill." It caused him to seek medical and psychological treatment and has left him "permanently damaged."
The father says every prospective firefighter is subjected to this hazing and that Piermont "manifested a deliberate indifference to these violations of civil rights" and created "a receptive atmosphere for the various acts of pedophilia performed by the co-defendants."
The complaint states: "(S)ometime prior to Aug. 14, 2010, and on occasions too numerous to mention, the defendant the Village of Piermont promulgated, fostered and implemented a policy whereby new arrivals ('initiates') into the position of volunteer firefighter would be subject to a form of 'hazing' whereby fellow firefighters would restrain the initiate's movements, depriving him of his freedom of movement, expose their genitals to the said initiate, and attempt to forcibly cause the initiate to place his hand upon and/or fondle the genitals of various members of the Piermont Fire Department, and/or force the said initiate against his will by dint of duress to sodomize an existing firefighter.
"Sixth: That upon information and belief, the aforementioned exercise of what the defendant The Village of Piermont deemed to be 'hazing' was done to each and every named individual defendant herein and further deemed to be a ritual utilized as a 'rite of passage,' a prerequisite in acceptance into the Village of Piermont Fire Department".
The father and son seek damages for battery, civil rights violations and outrage. They are represented by Richard Gilbert with Levine & Gilbert of New York, N.Y.
Piermont, on the west bank of the Hudson River, is a town of about 2,600. Its median household income of $88,000 is 61 percent higher than the state average, according to city-data.com. Its fire department apparently is all-volunteer. The town budget for fire protection is extremely low; the village has no official website. It decided to create an official website 2½ years ago but the site is still under construction, according to an Internet search this morning (Thursday).
WIS-TV is reporting that a Fairfield County, South Carolina volunteer firefighter, who is a registered sex offender, has been jailed on charges of groping a legally blind woman whose fence caught fire on Saturday. The TV station reports the sexual assault occurred when Ralph Marthers brought a fire report to the woman's home.
"I laid the report on the table," said the victim. "He proceeded to put his hand down my shirt and pinched my left breast. I slapped his hand away, then he proceeded to put his hand up my gown, from the bottom and I slapped his hand away again."
"I looked over and he had his private parts in his hand… and I told him no and I used a few choice words and told him he better get out of my house before I shoot him."
Reporter Jody Barr asked the chief of the Community Volunteer Fire Department if officials knew that Marthers was on the state's sex offender registry after a 1997 conviction of committing a lewd act on a minor. The chief didn't comment on that. Marthers, 51, has been on the department for about 25 years. He was suspended after Monday's arrest.
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