Boston fire chief gets vote of 'no confidence' in handling of bombings

[PEMO3 523]

"(CNN) -- Thirteen Boston deputy fire chiefs have signed a letter of "no confidence" in Fire Chief Steve Abraira regarding his handling of the Boston Marathon bombings, according to the letter, which CNN independently obtained from a deputy chief who signed it but requested anonymity.

The deputy chiefs wrote of their displeasure to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino on April 26, according to the letter.

"You can unequivocally consider this letter a vote of no confidence in Chief Abraira," the deputy chiefs wrote in the letter. They said the chief failed to assume command responsibility or show any leadership at the scene."

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/15/us/boston-bombings-fire-chief/index.html

""In their estimation, they believe that if you don't assume command, you don't have responsibility there for what goes on," he said. "I tried to explain to them, if I'm on the scene, I'm still responsible. That's it. But they don't believe it.

The chief told The Boston Globe that he was comfortable with the way his commanders were handling the incident.

"The nationally accepted practice is that you only take command (as chief) if there's something going wrong or if you can strengthen the command position or if it's overwhelming for the incident commander, and none of those things were in fact happening," he told the paper."

It seems to me that there is more here than meets the eye. Either this 13 Chiefs are misinformed or this is the platform for a different grudge. Rule one of any leadership position is that you can delegate the task and not the responsibility. I am missing the issue here. Many times the a senior officer will come on scene and monitor an incident but not "take or assume command" that does not mean they escape responsibility for the incident. If the officer in charge or IC has the incident under control and is not overwhelmed what is the purpose of "assuming command" for a already smooth operation. Are these 13 Chiefs claiming they were not able to adequately manage the incident? Where they ineffective at maintaining a smooth operation? Chief Abraira is correct in stating that it is a nationally accepted practice that you only take command if there's is something wrong, you strengthen the position, the IC is overwhelmed or the IC relinquishes the command to you. Needless to say this will be an interesting story to watch play out.

[10512 214]

It probably is a pizzing match that has more to do with the fact that he was not a Boston FF that went through the ranks. He was an outsider that was brought in as Chief several years ago.

[SageVigiles 1,194]

It would also make a difference (to me anyway) whether he showed up at all. I can understand the CoD showing up and not taking command for the reasons previously mentioned, simply serving in an advisory/support role to assist the Incident Commander, but for a Chief of a major urban fire department to not respond to the scene (or, perhaps more appropriately, to the EOC) during what is obviously a significant terrorist incident is a different story entirely.

It will be interesting to see where this goes.

Correction, I see now that he did get to the scene.

Edited May 16, 2013 by SageVigiles

[grumpyff 1,159]

Sounds like it is more than just this one incident. Looking at some of the different news articles out there, I get the feeling that the chief likes to sit back and watch, and as one article mentions "shield himself from immediate accountability."

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/14/letter/YD3JiMRNMClVbEak3bbsjP/story.html

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/05/deputy_chiefs_declare_no_confidence_in_boston_fire_chief

[PEMO3 523]

Sounds like it is more than just this one incident. Looking at some of the different news articles out there, I get the feeling that the chief likes to sit back and watch, and as one article mentions "shield himself from immediate accountability."

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/14/letter/YD3JiMRNMClVbEak3bbsjP/story.html

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/05/deputy_chiefs_declare_no_confidence_in_boston_fire_chief

Grumpyff, thank you for that side of the story. Like I said, I thought there had to be more to it. It is one thing to be supportive and stand back while your people do the job well and another thing to "sit back and watch" or as it appears hide when the s--t hit the fan, For that there is no excuse. If in fact the latter is the case then I can truly understand the "no confidence vote".

[INIT915 1,119]

What he is describing is common practice in many law enforcement agencies as well. Sounds to me like 13 DC's who all feel burnt because they were not chosen to be Chief, instead an outsider was.

[99subi 121]

stop watching cnn