Firefighter Joseph Graffagnino (l) and Firefighter Robert Beddia.

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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.

Gregg B. Smith, New York Daily News:

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.

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Allen Carlyle on the left and Shane Cranfield on the right.

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Previous STATter911.com coverage of this story here & here

Salisbury Post:

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.

WBTV-TV:

“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.”

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AP:

 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.

BBC:

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. 

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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.

KSTP-TV:

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.

StarTribune.com:

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.

Police photo of Firefighter Lawrence Wajda Jr.

WCCO Radio:

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.

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Read entire AJC.com article

Curt Varone's FireLawBlog.com coverage of this story

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.

Here's more from Anderson's article:

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."

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Read original WTTG-TV story & documents

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.

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Make sure you check out the Arrest Dustin Anderson Facebook group

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.

From GlobalTVBC.com:

21-year-old Dustin Anderson of Burnaby is facing charges of participating in a riot and assault.

Anderson was the target of intense anger on social media after a video of him allegedly assaulting a Vancouver firefighter surfaced.

A Facebook group entitled “Arrest Dustin Anderson” has over 2,300 members.

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Former East Spencer fire chief Shane Cranfield.

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Previous coverage of this story

More from WSOC-TV

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. 

Here's more from Karissa Minn at the Salisbury Post:

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.”

Former assistant chief and chief Allen Carlyle.

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From The Commercial Appeal:

(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.

From WMC-TV:

Forgery charges have been filed relating to the will of the late state representative Ulysses Jones, Jr.

In May, the fight over Jones' will ended with a Probate Court judge ruling that the signature on the document was not Jones' and therefore not valid.

The fake will had left the bulk of the estate to a woman he lived with for the past 18 years.

From an article by Bonny Kinney WREG:

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.