BFD1054

Wooooow, WTF is wrong with these people?
I hope this jack-off gets charged with more than a DUI and unauthorized use.
The fact that a Police Officer was along for the ride is the icing on the cake. Apparently no brains between any of them.
The house that they were drinking at is owned by the (vol) fire company??? Soo, vol FF's can live in this house i presume, to be able to respond to calls. Instead, it sounds as if the house is used more to the tune of a frat house.
What a disgrace!

Overkill of what?
He almost "overkILLED" a police officer!
He was reckless and endangered the general public!
As Chris stated, and it really opened my eyes...he COMMITTED no less than 21 OFFENSES.....

With all due respect, I think you have a grave misunderstanding about the role of an agency officer and the responsibilities of an agency member. It also seems that you view "professional courtesy" as an entitlement. Let me address your comments one at a time...
First off how do you know the police agencies and/or officers involved in this situation haven't gone to the offending agency in the past? Perhaps this is a pattern of behavior that needs to be resolved officially in the courts.
The defendant in this case committed 21 violations (or perhaps more) and received 21 summonses. The number of violations is what should be viewed as excessive, not the number of charges filed against him. These summonses were issued in lieu of a custodial arrest so the officers did exercise discretion.
Agency administrators, be they Chief, Captain, Commissioner, or whatever, are not parents and their members are not children (at least chronologically). There is definitely a time and a place for bringing a wayward child home to mommy or daddy but this is the case of an adult being held responsible for his actions. There's simply no reason for law enforcement to take an offender to his employer to resolve criminal acts (and reckless driving is a crime). That's like saying the State Police should take their findings in the fatal I-95 bus crash to the bus company for resolution. Where's the logic in that?
I understand where you're coming from about dealing with an agency directly and sometimes that is the right thing to do. I once stopped a vehicle operating at an excessive speed with a blue light and learned that there was no fire, the driver was late for work. He got his speeding ticket and his chief (three towns over) got a phone call about the blue light. Had the guy been running people off the road the chief would have read about the arrest in the newspaper.
It doesn't matter if it is a chief or member or civilian driving recklessly. They should be and are held responsible for their own actions. This case is noteworthy because it occurred while the offender was exercising the privilege of using red lights and siren. As the driver of any vehicle you're held responsible for the operation of that vehicle.
It isn't the lights and siren that make the risk greater; it is the driver's tendency to go faster and take more chances while using them. Psychologically it may be a false sense of security or it may be just plain adrenaline. And, highlighting points from other threads, there is a lack of supervision in many volunteer agencies that exacerbates this problem.
Finally, to receive professional courtesy one must be professional and courteous. This driver was neither. To expect preferential treatment or even infer that it is deserved in a case like this is why we hear stories of people getting tickets despite their membership in a fire or EMS agency. People get courtesy when they deserve it, not when they demand it.

I wonder if everyone thinks the brothers are a drain on their taxes now.

Although it says "part II" this is the first video

The second video

Its not volunteer when the choice is stretch a line or swim

just to clarify, Indian Point is in Buchanan but Verplanck FD is first due to the plant.

Like everything else ....it will be dismissed once a few phone calls are made to the police station, the mayor, or the judge.

...finally

Eastchester (through all of it's faults) could be used as a model for consolidation. The consultant's report done in the 1990s broke down what the cost would be if the Town and the two villages within the town, had each gone their own way at the turn of the Twentieth Century, and created three separate departments instead of creating one fire district. In the 1990s the savings was already in the area of many millions of dollars.
The study that the Career Chiefs put together with the people at Pace U a few years ago (Captain Nechis is an expert regarding this study) showed what could be done with south Westchester career/combo departments.
The models are out there, the studies completed, all that is needed is action. It has been pointed out this action will more than likely come from pressure at the State level, County level, or elsewhere. External pressure will force departments to start taking this matter seriously. A consolidation action committee should be formed, consisting of elected officials from fire districts, towns, villages and cities, their fire chiefs, along with union representation from the affected locals. Open communication, seriousness of purpose, and determination to improve delivery of service could result in progress. The resulting improvement in service delivery, along with safer working conditions for firefighters can be accomplished. The time is passed due for changes to be made.

When the numbers are broken down, it really looks terrible. Summed up, the FDNY protects 8x the population with 40% of the equipment. You can't get into a literal comparison, because it's apples and oranges, but those numbers certainly call for some sort of review. Response times don't HAVE to suffer either. You don't have to close down each firehouse, but you could reduce the equipment compliment by consolidation. Perhaps rescue companies could be made up of some sort of task force between multiple agencies. Maybe each dept. doesn't need to have a Rear-mount AND a platform. Two neighboring departments could make use of one each and have dual responses.
There are many ways to reduce an AMAZING redundancy of apparatus without hindering response times or levels of service.
8, 10, 15+ million dollar firehouses are a completely different story. I think a departments quarters should be nice and offer some comforts and maybe a luxury or two to entice guys to spend more time there. Thats fine. However, when I go to work in a 100+ year old firehouse that is LITERALLY crumbling, it makes you scratch your head at some of these palaces being built. Somehow 50 people (11 at a time) manage to work, eat, train and respond to many thousands of alarms each year out of this small and well worn firehouse. Plenty of volunteer organizations do quite well with comfortable and conservative quarters. If your willingness to participate hangs on how nice your firehouse is, you need to reevaluate your priorities.

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/spending-questioned-for-long-island-fire-districts-20110317
We in Westchester are not much better. Career or volunteer

Wow. That's a lot of money and apparatus.
What about what the FD's are doing to taxpayers? Isn't it appropriate to focus on that?
Good question. Is there an answer to this? What FD's aren't paying enough and which ones are paying too much? I bet there is no answer and I bet none of these departments can demonstrate how efficient the current system is.
Is there any study to show that response times would be slowed by consolidation or regionalization? Of course they think it would be a bad idea, it's their sandbox being threatened with reorganization.

42 local police departments now. Town of Ossining PD became part of the County PD just this year.
I wouldn't count Life-Net in your EMS agencies as they're the only air ambulance asset and not a duplicative resource.
If we started simply by focusing at the Town level we could reduce these numbers by more than a third. The seven PD's in Greenburgh and its villages could all become a single town PD (for example).
This could be done with fire and EMS also until we have strong, solvent, reasonably sized departments that can meet the standards and provide the most cost-effective service to the taxpayer.

If we keep beating up the tax payer, while toning out for any available driver over and over, your "dead horse" is either the taxpayer or it will be the tax payer beating us up.
Some of the proposals in Albany will bankrupt most Fire Districts and small municipalities. If they go through, you will see either FD consolidation or no coverage.
Particularly in Westchester where depts spend plenty of money and still need 5-10 mutual aid depts to handle a bedroom fire.

I am going to go with the area I live in The Town of Mt. Pleasant Fire Departments. I think they should consolidated Hawthorne, Thornwood and Valhalla down to 5 commissioners, 1 chief, 2 assistants with 2 Ladders (1 Tower and 1 straight stick) along with 1 Heavy Rescue and 3 engines out of a total of 3 stations. I would say that Hawthorne would be HQ (being centrally located) housing an engine and the Heavy Rescue with Thornwood housing station 2 with a ladder and an engine and Valhalla being station 3 housing another 1 and 1. I am in no way shape or form a person who has any knowledge in this subject and I am just throwing my thoughts out there in a hypothetical situation.
This would essentially eliminate 10 commissioners, 6 chiefs/ chief cars, 2 firehouses, 2 ladder trucks, 1 heavy rescue, 2 engines and 1 rescue engine if my math is correct.
***Again this was only me doing this for fun and not anything else***

Looks like they have some nice new modern apparatus. Did the MTV folks make a nice donation down there?!! Also, did Snooki & J-wow donate some personal flotation devices to the water rescue units??!!

But how many people in Bronxville believe they have their own dept.?

No single digits here. My father was #27. Hired after WW II. I think there was a big EFD expansion at that time'
Yes, Pauly Gormsen was a gracioous man, but I have heard from more than one source that if you were hesitating in a "hot" doorway, you would probably receive a not-so-graciuous boot in the wazoo. It was kind of a signal to advance the line.
As far as EFD originals, remembring them randomly from picnics and softball games when I was a kid:
Chief White
A/c Wadelton
Capt Blackie
Capt Catano ( Later Chief)
Ed Sorden
Dan McCurdy
Whoops, my brain just locked in to Gus Fisher's Crystal Tavern, the after-game place to go, so I can't think of any more Pre WW II names that I can be sure of. Attached, though, is EFD's "Emergency Squad," the predecessor of Rescue 5.
I now defer to Rick Dempsey. Rick. Please sit in the kitchen and look up at the pictures on the wall for us.

Is this a dig? If so, it's not particularly constructive... In fact, there is nothing funny about it, but it raises a real concern.
This is not to call into question the dedication of a particular organization's firemen, nor their professionalism and drive. Really, it doesn't need to be discussed in relation to ANY particular fire department. What an MCI such as this might highlight is a need for an MCI response plan that includes multiple agencies......or some kind of consolidation to form a larger agency with the means and necessity for more equipment.
I did not respond to this box yesterday, but I was at work and listening. There were an incredible amount of units on the scene to mitigate this disaster. Rescues 3 and 4 operated including, at least Collapse Rescue 3. That's 12 firemen, on top of an entire first alarm assignment. 39 pairs of hands. Add to that a few chief's and their aides, plus ESU and a FAST truck (Which sounds like a good idea to me when you have members working in a large, unstable and overturned bus). Top that off with 10+ EMS units, FDNY RAC 4 with temp. morgue set-up and Haz-Mat 1 to manage the fuel containment. That was all within the first few minutes. Many more followed. I'm sure you can up the tally with a great deal of DOT and Police units.
All of these resources and they had their hands full. These are people used to working together with a great deal of equipment at their disposal. More equipment than most Westchester Dept's. (outside of the bigger cities, Yonkers, NR, ect) have. So, what do you do? Who calls for what units and equipment? This seems like a perfect example of a need to utilize some kind of automatic response matrix with multiple F.D., P.D. and EMS agencies with a predetermined I.C. to maintain organization.
Clearly, and thankfully, this is an oddball event and no one knows exactly what to expect or how to perfectly handle each incident. However, it would be a good idea to consider what MIGHT be needed so that the proper personnel and apparatus are alerted quickly.

It shouldn't matter that this was a volunteer agency. The management of a volunteer EMS agency has just as much responsibility to manage as does any other organization. We can't look the other way "because we're volunteers" nor should we elect to provide less supervision, training, and risk detection and mitigation because it comes at a cost. They didn't blink at spending 100K on the ambulance so they should be willing to spend 1K to protect that investment and their reputation if not the people they're tasked with protecting.
Another option is to simply require members to disclose any accidents, arrests, or tickets on a membership survey. Sure someone may lie but if they do and are caught it could be grounds for dismissal.
There are a lot of options but the bigger message here isn't the ambulance accident, it's the lack of management that allowed it to occur. This is strictly not a criticism of the VAC involved but of all agencies that choose to ignore or abdicate their responsibilities.

Date: 03-07-11
Time: 1644hrs
Location: 1037 Rt. 17 - "The Corner Deli" c/s Orange Tpke.
Frequency: OC911
Units Operating: Tuxedo, Monroe, Sloatsburg (Rockland), Greenwood Lake, 36-16 (Coordinator), 36-103 (FI), 36-105 (FI)
Weather Conditions: Sunny
Description Of Incident: Structure Fire
Reporters:
Writer: BFD1054
1644hrs-Tuxedo/Mobile-1 sounding the all-call for Tuxedo FD to respond to the above location for the reported structure fire, visible flames and smoke from the building.
1645hrs-Orange 911 advising they are receiving multiple calls of an abandoned building fully imvolved at that location.
1649hrs-Orange 911 alering Monroe; (1) Engine requested to the scene. Sloatsburg (Rockland Co.) also requested with (1) Engine to the scene.
1650hrs-Orange 911 alerting Greenwood Lake; (1) Engine requested to re-locate to Tuxedo Compnay 2 for coverage.
1658hrs-Tuxedo/Mobile-1 re-sounding the All-Call for all available manpower to the scene of the working structure fire.
1701hrs-Orange 911 alerting Monroe for additional mutual-aid; (1) Tanker requested to the scene in Tuxedo.
1709hrs-Tuxedo Command requesting Rockland County Dept. 15 (Sloatsburg) to stand-by in their own quarters and cover all calls in Tuxedo. Command also requesting Woodbury FD to handle any calls on the NYS Thruway for Tuxedo.
1721hrs-Fire Investigator requested to the scene.
1757hrs-As per Command, fire is under control.

Photo of Mount Kisco's new Tower Ladder 14

CAREFUL! You might say it was easy....but is it fair to everyone based purely on racial background?!?! Only the results will tell! You're excellent score, a result of studying for a love of the job no doubt, might not mean a THING! If the job wasn't simply handed to enough of the right people, you might be put into the "second class category" of people who tried hard. You silly bunch!
I hope everyone finds my anger and frustration to be but, thinly veiled...

I wonder if it is lost on the Westboro "Church", that the people whose funerals they are protesting are the reason why this country has a Supreme Court to decide these issues.
Like the poem goes "It is the soldier, who died for the flag, who gives the protestors the right to burn the flag."