abaduck

OK it's not that long since I became a US citizen, so I may be wrong, but I'm sure I remember reading that in the Declaration of Independence... I don't believe it IS in the Constitution.

The we'll agree to differ. I'm not remotely anti-union; my father was a union man all his working life, and I've worked a union job in the past - and refused to cross a picket line during a dispute. I believe if there is a union you should join it. But I also believe you shouldn't ever HAVE to join a union to get or keep any job; I don't believe closed shops should be allowed to exist. Union membership should always be a matter of individual conscience. That's my view, and I respect the fact that others may differ.

I could be wrong, and if I am I'm sure someone will correct me, but I seem to recall being taught that a firefighter who is a member of an FD in the State of New York can offer his or her services to the IC in any other FD in New York; nothing as formal as a mutual aid situation, just 'I'm a firefighter, if you want me I'll place myself under your command' on a incident by incident basis. Or something along those lines.

I'll throw a few random comments in to get things going, and I'll second the request to keep it civil: 1. Freedom to associate also implies freedom NOT to associate; I really don't like the idea of a closed shop. 2. The article mentions forbidding vollies from responding in the hours immediately before a shift. Excuse me, I'm an adult. I don't need anyone telling me what I can and can't do in my off hours; it's your responsibility to see you show up at your job - any job - fit, sober, rested, and ready for work. 3. I can absolutely see where the union is coming from. If I was a career firefighter and union member, I would still volunteer - but I wouldn't do it in a combo department with union firefighters. That's MY choice - quite apart from union rules, I'd consider it professional courtesy. 4. Maybe the British model provides an answer. They don't have pure vollies, they only have 'retained' - a bit like paid per call. They're welcome to join the union, and many do; contracts may only affect career guys & girls, but there's a whole raft of other issues - health, safety, legal, disciplinary - that affect all firefighters, paid or otherwise. So, should vollies be able to join the union?

I hadn't noticed this before. Now that I have, I'm not happy. Maybe things got a bit out of hand on the scene, maybe people were having a bad day, maybe the cop made a bad call. It happens. But this is different. This has now gone way up the chain of command, and State Police have evidently decided to make an example of this Chief. Not good. Not going to help anyone.

One thing for sure. IMHO. In any such serious argument between a cop and a firefighter, *no-one* is going to come out a 'winner'. Play nice.

Yes. So? Did the town 'encourage' him to flee the scene of an accident? Did the town 'encourage' him not to stop at any point in the next eight minutes? Did the town 'encourage' him to drive so badly he wrapped his car round a tree and half-killed his passenger? Would the town be liable, and would the outcome be any different, if the town dispatcher had 'encouraged' a cop to follow him instead of a firefighter? I'm not saying the firefighter made a good choice, especially when it comes to using the blue light, but there's only one person liable for this, and it isn't the town and it isn't the firefighter and it isn't the unfortunate passenger.

I'm going to open my big mouth and bite on this... a few random points: 1. Blue light. Big mistake. That's not what it's for. And as a wise man once said to me, if you drive like an a$$hole, people say 'there goes another a$$hole'. If you drive like an a$$hole with a blue light, it's 'there goes another one of those a$$hole firemen'. 2. Aside from that, on the limited information available, I disagree totally with this judgement. It's ridiculous. 3. The word 'chase' is used freely. Was he chasing? Or following? What's the difference in law? I've 'followed' an obvious drunk driver and called them into the cops, and had the satisfaction of a 'thank you' call back for telling them exactly where to find the guy. 4. So the idiot driver wrapped it round a tree and half-killed their passenger. How is anyone other than the driver liable, unless they were literally forced off the road? If they had stopped at the accident, it wouldn't have happened. If they hadn't driven like an idiot, it wouldn't have happened. Why didn't he sue the bloody driver? 5. I can't remotely see how the town can be liable for this. Way too far remote from the cause of the injury. Unless the report is totally incomplete and the damages were actually awarded because... he crashed into a dangerous tree which the town should have cut down or something. I'd tell him to go whistle for the money, and I can't see this surviving an appeal. 6. If you have confidence in the standard of your driving, do what I've done for the last three years or so - install a 'spy in the cab' camera. Activates automatically when you start the car, runs all the time. No arguments about who's to blame after an incident with video evidence available. 7. If you're in the habit of driving like an a$$hole, ignore 6. above!

Agreed, 'respond with caution' is terrible phraseology; almost designed to give some sharp lawyer ammunition. 'Respond non-emergency' is equally short and clear. As for expedite, yes when it comes to ConEd as others have pointed out, otherwise... sizeup is more useful: 'Engine XX and all units, be advised we have a confirmed working fire with persons trapped' sounds a heck of a lot more useful to this plain old line firefighter, and we all know what it will mean for the response. 'Expedite' is redundant.

Sage, he listed the communist manifesto amongst his favourite books, and he posted a video of a flag-burning on YouTube. So the right can make him out to be a commie-loving flag-burning nut job, and the left can make him out to be a right-wing nut job foaming at the mouth after listening to one too many shock jocks. Both are wrong and are shamefully using this for political ends; he was a nut job plain and simple, his insane motivations had nothing to do with what you, I, or any sane person would call 'politics'. This was a Cho, not a McVeigh. To those calling for the death penalty, I sympathise but to be honest I doubt he'll be found sane enough to try. If he is tried, he'll probably be found too insane to convict; he belongs in a a secure hospital. (Oh and for the record, my politics tend to the right, but I'm really more a libertarian than anything else)

I've had a look around various news sites covering this story, especially the comments sections, and I'm profoundly depressed at the number of people (on both sides) who straightaway, before the blood was even cleaned up, made this a partisan political issue. The guy who did this was apparently a total bloody nut job; these comment-posting people who would make this political aren't nuts, they're simply *hateful*.

Bollocks to that. The most stressful job in America is 'parent'; I'd easily take a structure fire over my three kids having a bad day!

I'll second that. I drive using what I call the 'seven minute rule'; I remember at all times that I'm surrounded by drivers who passed a test that lasts seven minutes and has a 99% pass rate or whatever it is... (I was born and raised in the UK; there the road test lasts 45 minutes and has a less than 50% pass rate)

I put it straight on my Facebook, for those who hadn't heard about it. Other than that... what more needs to be said? They did the deed, and that says it all. Republicans need to know this will be remembered for a LONG time.

I await the story of frantic impoverished motorists waving away the Hurst, saying 'go away, my brother is coming with with a hacksaw...'. Or a house burning down because someone decided they couldn't afford to call the FD to a car fire. More succinctly, morons. If I ever get one of those so-called 'invoices' I'll fold it until it's all corners and stick it where the sun don't shine. Are we a public emergency service? Or fire suppression contractors? Cash, check, or credit card...

I don't get this at all. "The 911 system cost-sharing initiative would allow the city to recoup the costs associated with 911 system dispatch and telemetry that are currently borne by the city..." Excuse me, isn't 911 an essential service which the city HAS to provide? The notion of trying to 'recoup' those costs strikes me as... peculiar. So what's next? Change 911 from toll-free to premium rate? That would raise money. They're charging ambulances for using the system? Shouldn't they be *paying* for ambulances if the city needs them? If most of the tours are run by FDNY, most of the fee will be paid by FDNY, in other words the taxpayers? As I said at the beginning, I don't get this at all!

Some of the best training videos I've seen were on FE techniques by the FDNY - but I don't think they share them... if you know any FDNY guys it might be worth a try.

Good luck Chris. I'd be up for it, but as a reformed Brit I'm permanently banned from giving blood in the USA!

Or you're going to protect any exposures and let it burn; if it's possible, this may cause a lot fewer problems than getting a few thousand gallons of finished foam & petroleum product into the nearest stream... Mike

Barry, a question for you (just out of curiosity; no axe to grind here) - there seems to be one very important item missing from this list: mutual aid. Whether two or more adjoining departments are formally consolidated, or whether they just have a mutual aid plan in place seems fairly moot to me; what matters is the quality, quantity, and timeliness of the TOTAL response when called upon to mitigate a serious incident. How does ISO weigh that into the assessment? Clearly it's one thing if we're looking at Middle of Nowhere FD where the nearest MA is an hour away; they HAVE to be self-sufficient, and their ISO rating will stand or fall entirely on their own performance on the factors you list above. But if you're a department in a dense suburb (which much of lower Westchester is), the fact that you have, say, three other departments within a couple of miles ready, willing and able to respond should have a very significant impact on your rating. Whether you're one consolidated department or three independent departments, the resources are still there...

Yes... I meant to post about this a while ago. There's a very nasty copyright trolling law firm active at the moment. They recently sued an EMT website: http://www.ems1.com/legislation-funding/articles/865819-NH-EMS-blogger-hit-with-lawsuit/ Their MO is, they trawl the internet looking for blog posts etc. quoting newspaper articles, then *buy a retrospective copyright* to the article so they can sue for ludicrous damages, out of all proportion to any actual losses. I have to say, a mugger or the mob is more honest in their villainy; very nasty pieces of work. Some good news: they've recently suffered a serious setback, losing a case they actually brought to court: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101020/17471011517/righthaven-loses-first-lawsuit-judge-says-copying-was-fair-use.shtml So hopefully EMTCity will be ok!

It's not often I take this kind of view, but having heard enough of the details of the case it's a pity it couldn't be... slow.

Bloody nanny states, banning stuff. If it isn't this, it'll be strong cheap cider. Or fortified wine. Or extra strength lager. There's always some 'demon drink' politicians (who feel they MUST be seen to be doing something to keep their jobs) latch on to, to scapegoat and try to ban. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Some idiots will always think it's clever to get legless, whatever they're drinking.

Crime cop, I agree with a lot of what you say - and I agree with much of the above - but I'll pull you up on 'a cross always marks the spot where someone died, no matter what religion they were'. I have several Pagan friends. A couple of them - very close friends - are Vietnam veterans. These guys had a HELL of a fight, over more than a decade, to get the Department of Veterans Affairs to approve the Pagan symbol (pentagram) for veteran's headstones. They approved dozens of other symbols, some for faiths you've probably never heard of ('Sufism Reoriented'? 'Konko-Kyo'??) - but when it came to the Pagans they resorted to every dirty trick in the bureaucratic book to frustrate them - sat on the applications, claimed the rules had changed and they had to reconsider, claimed they had suspended all new applications pending new rules... back to the beginning again... and so on for over a decade. You get the picture. They finally approved the headstones on the courthouse steps after being sued. So yeah I'm sensitive to these issues. I have no objection to crosses and I think this was a dumb lawsuit. I have a BIG objection to any policy that says that ONLY crosses are allowed or provided.

There are guys in their 40s who take them and get hired. I am, and I'm seriously considering it! 'Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill' Fortunately the CPAT is pass/fail, so the young athletes won't blow us into the weeds...