Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Mike to doing the podcast hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Globe.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
You were listening to the best of the breaks interviews
with the FD and YS a week two.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I'm trying to get this one on the docket for
a while, and tonight it finally comes to fruition on
the first Friday, first day of August. Mind you, and
welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to another episode of the
Mike Denwavan podcast. And what is an ongoing continuation across
these couple of weeks here of FD and Y shows.
We had done solely PD interviews upon our comeback, but
I wanted to delve back into the FD side of things.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
So you've got your phil these next couple of weeks.
For sure.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Last episode was really fun one. Jerry Gambo FD and
Y EMS assistant chief of course upon the merger in
nineteen ninety six. Prior to that, worked EMS forever, starting
in nineteen seventy nine as a paramedic. Mind you, during
a crazy time in New York City's history, and we
got some great guests coming up. We got a great
guest tonight, just very briefly wanted today mentioned this because
(02:00):
we found out about it over the course of the
show or towards the end of the show on Friday,
and I'm going to try to pull up the screen here.
So when we were doing the show towards the end,
John Ontanzio, retired detective out of the NYPD Emergency Service Unit,
made it mention that there had been some sort of
a shooting in Manhattan and there was a police officer
who'd been shot, and I didn't know the details of
(02:23):
it until I got off the air. I flipped on
the news and I saw, of course the madness that unfolded,
and unfortunately five people were killed in that senseless rampage.
But I wanted to share the screen here because the officer,
it turned out, was since posthumously promoted to detective first
grade at his funeral yesterday, Detective Drule Islam. He worked
in the forty seventh Preastinct in the Bronx and he
was working overtime at that Park Avenue complex in Midtown
(02:47):
Manhattan when this rampage unfolded. He was shot and killed
in the line of duty in that lobby. So I
just wanted to send our deepest condolences to his family
and both at home and of course at his second
home in the NYPD forty seventh Precinct. Brave until the end,
and his four years of service and his sacrifice certainly
will be remembered for many, many years to come. As
(03:08):
we said, great guest, tonight, we're just gonna run our
typical ad for our friend Billy Ryan, and then we'll
get right into this fantastic guest and his very interesting
career across not one, but two civil service agencies in
the City of New York. The Mike thy new Haven
Podcast is proudly sponsored and supported by the Ryan Investigative Group.
If you need an elite PI, look no further than
the elite Ryan Investigative Group, which is run by retired
(03:30):
NYP Detective Bill Ryan, a twenty year veteran of the
Department who served the majority of his career in the
detective Bureau, most notably in the Arson explosion squad. So,
if you need a PI to handle anything from fraud,
legal services, and anything else that you might require, contact
Bill at three four seven four one seven sixteen ten
again three four seven four one seven sixteen ten. Reach
him at his website or the email that you see
(03:52):
here again. If you need a PI, look no further
than Bill Ryan and the Ryan Investigative.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Group, a proud supporter and sponsored the Mike the New podcast.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
And as always, if you're watching on LinkedIn, YouTube or
Facebook you got a question, put in the Chatow answer
for you at the appropriate time, all right. In his
twenty two years of service in the City of New York,
my next guest war not one, but two hats. Firstus
a police officer from nineteen eighty one until nineteen eighty seven,
and then it's both a firefighter and fire marshal with
the Ft and Y, investigating and responding to numerous cases
(04:23):
and incidents, including the fire that tragically killed Captain Vincent
Fowler in nineteen ninety nine, the Father's Day fire of
June seventeenth, two thousand and one, and the terror attacks
and the World Trades in our September eleventh, two thousand
and one. There were no dual moments in his career,
and that for this volume sixty eight of the Best
of the Bravest Interviews with the Ft and Alys Elite
retired New York City Police officer and FD and Y
Fire Marshal Don Mormino I'm don welcome, I re.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
You, thank you, Mike, thanks for having me, thanks.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
For being here.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So before I get into really what was a boring career?
I mean, whatever happened right, and totally no moments to
talk about tonight. I don't know how we'll fill the time.
I'm kidding, of course, take me through where you grew up.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I grew up on Long Island in Elmont, and I
was there till I was about fifteen years old, and
then I moved out to Farmingdale, where I still reside,
so I'm still out there, So.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I mean, I was going to ask you before we
get into the civil service aspect of things, if I
remember correctly, and correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Did you volunteer early before taking Civil service test?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yes? I did? I did. I Actually what I was
when I grew up in Elmont. I kind of hooked
up with a couple of guys that were part of
a junior program and the volleys out there, and I
was in it at thirteen years of age, and I
stayed there up until I was eighteen as a member,
and that kind of rounded out my interest in becoming fireman.
(05:43):
A great bunch of guys. I enjoyed the fire service.
Of course I had family that was already in the
fire service on the city side. Paid none of them volunteers,
but that was the only way I could really get
in so between, like my younger teen years, it was,
you know, with the juniors in Elmont and right up
until I joined at eighteen in South Farmiga where I
(06:04):
am now.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Before we continue, Terry Murnaine's and the chatty says, I
work with Don in the seven to five during your
NYPD days.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
He says, good time one.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Terry Murnaine was one of my mentors, and you'll hear
me when I talked about that about guys to learn.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
From, absolutely and Terry.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
I'd love to get Terry on the show some day
if he's willing to come on. So that'd be a
fun episode if we could do that in the future.
Hi to Pat Hatzel at John costello Perceptive Washington Night
as well. So, I mean, guys, I know if they
want to go FD what they'll do, and it's smart
at least back then you start with PD or any
other civil service agency like sanitation in the city because
ultimately it rolls over to your pension when you're ultimately
(06:40):
said and done. So was that the advice you got
when you took the NYPD test or was there a
desire at least originally before you lateral, Hey, I want
to be a cup.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I was taken every test I possibly could take. I
actually turned down a job with the City of Clearwater, Florida,
Police Department in nineteen eighty one. It was the summer
of eighty one, and had just turned twenty one years old.
That'll give you an idea how old I am. So
I turned down the job because in October of eighty one,
(07:10):
I knew I was getting called for the New York
City Transit Police. I was going to be in their
first class, and I was just taking everything and the
way the Fight Department list was coming out, and the way,
you know, once the list came out, all the delays,
I just wanted it, just wanted to jump in. I mean,
either Korea would have been great to me to stay.
(07:32):
But you know, I had a load of family in
the fire service, and I had been exposed to the
fire service at a very very young age, at the
age of five and six, going with my dad, you know,
So it was it was a difficult decision to later
all over. But I was in a good spot with
PD and I, you know, and it was a tough choice,
(07:55):
really tough because I worked with some really really good guys.
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Of course, it wasn't like even even that you meet
people in that short time frame that impact you. But
it wasn't like you were there for like a year
and a half or whatever and then you laugh. This
was six years, so you built up a lot of
bonds in that time frame.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely. I had. My career got accelerated pretty
much in the very beginning over one typical arrest that
was out of the ordinary, and I kind of spearheaded
my movement up through playing clothes and into you know,
into the detective bureau. So, you know, like I said,
(08:32):
I left, I left. I was assigned to the detective
bureau when I left, And that was a tough decision
to leave and go from a shirt and tie to
a mop and pots and pants.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
So although you eventually ended up back with a shirt
and tie again, which we'll touch on later, yes, exactly, yes, yes,
so it did. It did come full circle. This is
volume sixty eight of the best of ravious interviews with
the ft and wise elite. Our guest tonight is retired
FT and WI fire Marshall Dodmore Meta, who originally was
a New York City Police officer and a friend of yours.
Another friend of yours, Keith Kessler, is in the chat.
(09:05):
He says, lifelong friend. They don't come any better, so he's.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Well, Keith Kesler. Keith Kessler's dad was my father's partner
and a good part of the run of the reasons
why you know my dad when he worked with Keith's
dad over in two fifty nine engine in the field
com his dad was was a very big part of
(09:29):
my career.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Man. So a small world tomorrow. Then it's good to
see all you in the chat tonight.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Like I said, any questions or any stories fire away,
and we're happy to share them tonight. So I want
to go back for a second because you mentioned the
Transit Police, as all of you know by now, most
of you, of course come from civil service. In the audience,
three different police departments back then up until eighty one
eighty two, Housing and.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Trans that were running their own academies.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
After that, the NYPD ran for all three, and then
they kind of pick and choose who went where did
you start in transit and then rollover into another academy
class that didn't change along the way to city.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I spent almost eleven months in the police academy. I
got hired, yep, I got hired by Transit in October
of eighty one, Okay, October, November, December, and January. I
was in the Transit Police academy up in Harlem one
hundred and fifty fifth Street and eighth Avenue, Okay, in
a school, sitting in small little desks because the Transit
(10:26):
police had their own police academy. So come January we
out of the class. I think there were two hundred
of us in the class. There was like seventy five
or eighty of us that got the call to rollover
to NYPD in January of eighty two, and we all
went down on the same day. We got to notice
(10:46):
and told the Transit Police that we were resigning and
going to NYPD. So they're like, oh, you know, you know,
they try to kind of convince us to stay, but
we all wanted, you know, we all want to roll over.
So they were going to hold a bridge class for us,
and basically, since we were four and a half months
(11:07):
into a six month academy. They were going to hold
the class in the in the PD Academy to say, Okay,
these guys already had the first four and a half months.
Let's give them another month and a half and they're
ready to go. We got eighty guys onto the street. Well,
there was a councilwoman in the City of New York
that said that sat on the MTA board also had
(11:30):
influence with them and said, no, they want to leave us,
let them start over. And she was adamant. So after
being an the academy for like four and a half months,
I had a start from scratch. But but the good
part of that was is the Transit Police curriculum was
(11:53):
exactly the same as the NYPD curriculum. So for the
first four and a half to five months, everything was repeated.
For me, it was a no brainer. I mean I
had just I had just gone through all that studying
and everything else. So the first four and a half
months of the curriculum in the NYPD Academy was exactly
(12:14):
the same. I aced every test, why because I had
only answers, I had the reviews, I had you know,
everything done. So in June when it came to get out. Well,
I got out and we got out of the academy.
There were three thousand of us in that academy class
in January of eighty two. It was the class was huged.
(12:35):
Three we worked to school to chot was three three shifts, A,
B and C squads, you know, platoons, and you know
we were working seven days a week, you know, you know,
depending on your days off rotated. And because the class
was so large, they had those NSUS where you know,
(12:56):
you'd go for training once you got out, but there
were so many people that the NSUS couldn't handle three
thousand cops. So they made these quasi task forces and
sent you to the burrows and this task force and
the transition was you go from a task force to
the NSU to a precinct. Well, they realized that they
(13:18):
were short of manpower. So what they did was is
they went back and took the top ten percent of
the class, the three thousand guys, and they sent them
right to commands. So I was in the top ten percent,
not because I'm a super student, It's because I went
through it twice and I got picked and I went
(13:40):
right to the seven five and you know, my first
question was is they said, okay, you're going to the
seventy fifth precinct. I'm like, okay, where's that? They said
it's in Brooklyn, And being from Long Island, my next
question was is where's Brooklyn? So but I got there,
and you know, and that's where I started. I only
(14:01):
had a couple of weeks on a job and I
was already into a command with a partner that had
fifteen years on a job, you know, and that was it.
It was in a radio car and you know, a
couple of.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Weeks and you don't just go to any precinct. And
this is where when Terry mentioned it in the chat,
my eyes kind of lit up a little bit. You
go to what is the most violent precinct in the
city at that time. You give us twenty two minutes,
we'll give you a homicide. There's a lot of guys
that have been on the show that worked the seven five,
and if they didn't stay their careers there, they eventually
went on to detective squads. They eventually went onto the
(14:33):
Emergency Service Unit. Construct Seven's in that precinct. You guys
are busy. Not a lot of mileage in that precinct,
but a lot of violence in what two or three
square miles.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
No, the precinct is actually one of the largest in
the city. And correctly, yeah, the seven three is the
small one. The seven five is the large ones where
I got mixed up. And it you know, it goes
from Queen's on the north end, all the way down
at the water on the south end, you know, talking
about you know, Jamaica, into Borough Parkway, all the way
(15:03):
up on the north all the way again into the
water down down off you know, south of the Bell
Parkway and the precinct. It was the crack era. Crack
was going wild. They were killing everybody there was you know,
it was it was it wasn't uncommon to have one
or two homicides a week there and the numbers were outstanding.
(15:25):
And the detective squad there looking from as a young
cop and watching was was That's how I learned that
because just just of a repetition of watching these guys
that put time in probably at that time, the busiest
precinct in the city of New York, with the most
(15:45):
homicides and you know, and the most shootings and the
most guns. And it was it was like a wild West.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Some of the best cops that have worked in New
York City's history have come from commands either like that one,
or came from busy commands in the Bronx, or came
from commands and places like Harlem where nothing against the
cops that worked in areas like Midtown Manhattan. I'm not
saying you're not doing anything down there.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
It's just different from Burrow to Borough.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
But the grittier precincts I felt read the best cops
because you're constantly the crap is constantly hitting the family,
and you're constantly in it. You learn how to operate
it and get comfortable with it. For lack of a
better way to word.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
It, it's you're gonna see it and you're gonna learn
the job right away. In the busier places. You know,
when you go places, when you go on details and
you go on you go to different commands, the first
thing they ask you is, you know, where do you
work or where did you work? And that's almost like
a badge on a coming from a place like that,
because they know you did the job. You know, the
(16:46):
guys that I worked with were seasoned, hardened veterans, and
like I said, I got there at a time where
the homicides was through the roof. I mean, you know,
I think my first week there, I went to two homicides.
You know, I'm like, I'm like, oh my god, is
this for real? I mean I talked to guys on
the outside in county departments that haven't been to a
(17:09):
homicide in their entire korea. I was too my first
week there, so you know, and watching and watching the
best of the best work and how they work through
it and learning from them was where I started, where
I started to learn and how I learned.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
And that was going to say.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
I mean, obviously you mentioned earlier it was a tough decision,
and I'm sure FDU was in the back of your
mind even then because of your family history. But originally,
before you finally settled the okay, I'm gonna later all over,
you did end up in the detective bureau. I imagine
the goal was, at least for the time, let me
try to work my way up to a gold shield.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
That was that was my goal originally, that was and
to leave it on the table and leave only being
a couple of weeks away from getting it was was
was very difficult my career. I kind of accelerated my career.
I was only on the street in the seven five
(18:09):
about a year and a half. I got extremely lucky.
My partner and I my partner, Dennis, and I one
day get flagged down on Jamaica Avenue by a woman
and her young daughter who just came out of Catholic
school and advised us that the daughter was flashed by
somebody driving a brand new corvette. So we take off
(18:34):
down Jamaica Avenue, We get the vet, we get the guy.
We said, we tell her come meet us. Okay. Of course,
the guy's denying everything and ps he's wearing a pair
of those tennis shorts from the seventies, you know, in
this brand new corvette. The girl identifies him as you know,
(18:59):
so we know we have a call for public lewdness.
Besides whatever else he you know, like I said, it
was my turn to catch I was up for the college.
So we wind up locking him up and taking him
back to the precinct. And the guy tells me, as
(19:19):
I'm driving him back, listen to me. I can't get arrested.
I'm bonded. I'm like, what do you mean you bonded.
He says, well, I have a bond and I have
to get bonded, and if I get arrested, I'll lose
my bond. I said, why what do you do? He's like,
I'm a trainer over at the racetrack, over at Aqueduct,
and I have to be bonded, and if I get arrested,
(19:40):
I can't be a trainer anymore. I'll give you one
thousand dollars to let me go. So at that time,
the NYPD had this thing called the Integrity Review Board
under commission of Maguire. And so we bring him back
to the commands. We put him in the cell. We
tell him we'll work everything out. Now. My mind is spinning.
(20:00):
We tell the boss. They call internal affairs. They got
a guy there with a tape recorder. They put the
tape recorder in the room. The guy comes into the
room and I'm like, look what you did was wrong?
You know this and that? He said, ah, you know.
He goes through the whole story again, and he says,
I can't get arrested. I told you I'll give you
a thousand bucks. I said, you got the thousand He said, yeah.
(20:21):
He reaches into his pocket, he hands me ten one
hundred dollar bills. I take the bills. I said, okay,
now you're under arrest for bribery. He's like, no, no, no, no,
I didn't you know? He said no, I gave it
to you to hold and said I opened up the destrayer.
The tape recorder was in the desk drawer. I opened
the door. The two guys from Internal Affairs FIAU were outside.
I hand them a thousand dollars and he goes down
(20:43):
and he gets arrested. The CEO of a precinct, great guy,
inspected the PIRO love the guy, very good for the guys.
Puts me into the integery review board. A week later,
they said what do you want? And I got a
year and a half on the street. What do I want?
I want to go to narcotics, but you got a
year and a half on the street. I want to
go to narcotics. Stupid me. I should have said I
(21:07):
wanted to go to aviation. So which was you know?
I look back, So the CEO they go to the
integrity review board. The integrity review board says, I don't
have enough time to go to narcotics with a year
and a half. The precinct CEO said to me, okay,
don look, I'll put you in the SNW unit, which
was the street narcotics unit in the seventy five YEP.
(21:30):
And I was out of uniform the next day. That
was it. A year and a half in uniform. The
next day the CEO put me in this new unit,
and that's where I started doing my narcotics work, you know, observation,
buy and bust, you know. And then SNeW transitioned into
anti crime, which then transitioned into the robbery squad, the
rip unit. From there, I went and did a stint
(21:52):
in public morals which was PMD, which was horrible. Well,
it was during it was during padlock, so they wanted
all these number places and all we were doing was
hitting numbers places, number of places. Every now and then
we'd make a couple of prostitution arrests, a couple of
(22:15):
ABC violations with the alcohol and tobacco, the alcohol and
beverage control. It was a time around Robert Chambers when
underage drinking was a big thing. So we had an
underage drinking thing that we used to do. But I
just want it out of there. I called the boss
from the Brooklyn Robbery squad when I was in RIP,
(22:35):
and he said, if you can get out of PMD,
I'll take you back. I went to the COO again
and I said, look, I can go back to Brooklyn
Robbery if you you know, if you release me, because
they only had a year there. He said go. Just
happened to be the same inspector that was the CEO
of the seven to five, so he said, if you
can go back to Brooklyn Robbery, go, I'll let you go.
(22:57):
And that was it. I went back to Brooklyn Robbery,
this time on the detective Bureau side, and I got
a sign I was doing. I was in the seven
to seven rip and then the seven the I'm sorry
seven to seven rip, and then he ate one rip
and then I was getting ready for a detective shield
and and why the FDNY called and said, you got
a decision to make, and it was what do I do?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
And we'll get to that decision momentarily.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
But I do want to go back because I see
Steve Virodo's question the chat and he says, in the
light of the fact he had to do twice, were
you the class valedictorian?
Speaker 3 (23:34):
No?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I was not.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
No, Although I was up there. I was not developed Victorian. No,
but remember I switched over with you know, from from
the Transit Academy. There were eighty of us. I think
there was almost eighty of us that left, and which
you know didn't set well with the Transit Police because
you know, and I think that was probably one of
(23:57):
the reasons why they eventually wound up merging years later,
is because everybody wanted to get out of the hole
to go onto the street, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
And that do'll blame them.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
It really wasn't a desirable police department to work for
until Bratton came there. You know, until Bratton came in,
they're really modernized him and Jack Mapele too, you know,
really modernized the place in Jack Maple, especially with the
decoy squad. It wasn't a landmark police department, you know,
they were you know, they were often referred to as
the other police. You know, same thing with housing and
though at least with housing, okay, you're at you're on
(24:28):
the street and you work with the projects, but there
was a lot to do with the projects back then.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
So now I'm not bashing transit.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Conference had a lot of them on the show from
the old time transit police. But it was a tough
job to work back then from the moral standpoint, and
you know, obviously being in the subways all day.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
It was And you know, they were tough because they
all worked solo. They were all by themselves, because you
knew you when you number one. The radios hardly ever worked.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah, they were garbage.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
I was gonna say that, And that's a whole nother
story I got for later on. But the stories didn't work.
The radios didn't work, and they were on their own
a lot, and you know, you got involved in something,
and you know, you got involved. It was tough. And unfortunately,
I was in the Transit of Police, the Transit Academy
(25:12):
with Irma Azada. She was Irma was in Erma, was
in my next the next company over from US. I
was in uh. I was in ten, she was in nine.
We took Pete together. We did a lot of stuff together,
and I knew her, and you know, and again when
she got out, she did well for herself, and she
(25:33):
did unfortunately, you know, she was killed in a line
of duty, which was a tough one because I knew
her and she was really she was really into the job.
She really enjoyed the job. But again it's working by yourself, radios.
That didn't work chasing a bad guy, you know, off
the system. A lot of things went wrong, and it's
just a shame, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, every time I read about how she died, I
want to cry. I'm not, but it always gets to me.
And that's one that really really bothers me because with
how she started her career, like you said, she was
doing very well for herself, you know, beautiful young girl
as well. You know she was not she was she
would have done great things in the police department. You know,
there's another ultimate timeline of such existed where I could
(26:16):
totally see, based off the trajectory of her career, she
would retire as a chief or something.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
You know, she had it in her for sure, and
she's not forgotten. So you later and you know, you
get into the FDN. Y Now.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I have friends of mine that have done both the
police academy and then ladled over the fire here in Connecticut.
Shout out to Steve beckwith at justin Standish in particular,
if you guys are watching, and I'll never forget something recently,
one of my captains told me where He's like, if.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
You've been through one academy, you've been through the mall.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Obviously, different agencies, different style of rules and whatnot. But
I imagine having been through not one but two police academies,
technically fire academy couldn't have faced it. It was tough, obviously,
but it couldn't have faced it.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yes, you're right, but you know the routine. They break
you down to build you up.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, oh yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
They break you down to build you up. And I
knew what to expect. Number one, I knew they weren't
going to hurt you, okay. Number two, I knew the
game because you know, you're in there for sixteen weeks.
The first eleven ten eleven weeks, they're going to be
mean and ogre ish and everything else. And by week
(27:29):
twelve they're like your friends and they're talking to you normally,
but you still know your place in line. And by
week sixteen, you know, you just you know, it's a
whole different. You know, that was my drill instructor. You know, yes,
very regimented, very disciplined. You had to do the right thing.
But if you knew the game, like I said, having
(27:51):
been through eleven months, I kind of knew what to.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Expect, right, you know, and you were able to deal
with it just fine.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
That's why for me and I thank my drill instruct
because of the time, even if it didn't end the
way I wanted to, for being how they were, because
if I ever am to do another Fire Academy again
down the road. To your point, you know, you know
what to expect. The lack of familiarity kills you sometimes.
I know it killed me in the beginning, but I'm like, oh, okay,
you meet these guys outside of that context.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
To your point, yeah, you know, completely different people or
it's understandable. It's a tough job. You got to have
a tough skin to deal with it.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, if you had the right mindset,
you did well. You did well. But you had to
have the right mindset. It's a game. It's a game.
That's what they're there to do it for a reason,
and it works. It works. Yeah, and you can. They
build you, they build you back up, and they mold
you into what you should be. And I whole audibly
(28:44):
agree with how they do it.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
It works absolutely absolutely. We'll continue on with your FD
career now that we've reached that point in a bit,
But just one question. I didn't want to know it,
qc best in regards to PD. He just wanted to
know if you were at the Palm Sunday massacre at all.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
No, I was off that day. I came in the
I came in the next day.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
That was a rather crazy situation.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Yes it was. It was in the heart of the
seventy five and all all the squad that was there
that day I worked with very closely, because when you
doubled up on days and four to twelves, I knew
everybody that was there and I had the opportunity to
talk with them and the seasoned people that were there.
(29:29):
It was tough for them, It was. It was tough
for them, you know, and talking with them back then
on what they faced when they encountered it, when they
went in there, you know, it was it was horrible,
you know, and you know, if anything, if anything good
could come out of it. There was a survivor, and
(29:49):
it was, you know, a little girl, a baby at
the time, and eventually she was adopted by one of
the cops that showed up.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
At least I had a silver lining at the end
of it.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah, she wound up the police officer at the time,
went through the process and eventually adopted that little girl
that she. You know, they found when they got to
the Pump Sunday massacre. And what a great story that
that I think is the culmination of you know, as
bad as things could get, there was a silver lining
(30:20):
in that class for that girl. You know.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Thanks for the question, Q see, and thank you earlier
for your question to Steve Virado. So those seven years
you spent on the line, you were essentially in the
same house because you went across the floor. Three point
thirty two and one seventy five are in the same quarters.
Those seven years were spent in Brooklyn, the first five
at three three two. So we're getting an engine like that.
I mean, Brooklyn's still busy. He was even busier back then.
I mean, we're not in the Warriors anymore per se.
(30:44):
That was primarily the seventies, sixties and seventies. But there's
still a lot of work to go around. So tell me,
at least in that part of Brooklyn for three three two,
one seventy five truck, what are we dealing with a
lot of Queen Anne's taxpayers tenements, like what type of
fires were you guys normally going to?
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Well? And again, let me let me just preface this
by my transition over, my lateral over. Remember when I
said before I went from a shirt and tied the
pots and pants. The quite the thing to remember is
it was in the same neighborhood. So the neighbors and
the people on the street were used to seeing me
(31:22):
in an unmarked car driving around and making arrests and
making college and doing you know, locking up drug dealers
and you know, and here I am four weeks, five weeks, six,
six weeks later, whatever it was, I'm now on a
fire truck and they're looking at me like I'm like, no, no, no,
it was my cousin, it was it was you got
(31:44):
me mixed up with yah. I just you know, same neighborhood.
I moved. I moved my lock of thirteen blocks. That's
that's what happened. Yeah, I moved my lock. I moved
the contents of my lock of thirteen blocks. I went
from Suttery Avenue to Bradford Street. So the neighborhood was
a lot of private dwellings, very very The response area
(32:07):
was very few projects. Really at that time, it was
a great response area because as I used to say,
it was really nothing over five floors for the roofman
to get. So we had, you know, you didn't have
to worry about all these tall buildings that the outlying
response areas had. We had very few buildings that went
(32:28):
more than five floors, you know, so uh, private dwellings,
Atlantic Avenue, Picking Avenue, a lot of commercial strips, you know.
But you know we had old law tenements, new law tenements,
we had the appointment buildings. So you had a good
mix of stuff. But like I said, the biggest thing
(32:49):
was nothing over five floors because if you went if
you went over to the West and you went over
to one twenty and two thirty one, you know they
had they had everything, you know, elevator jobs, and you
know they were looking at projects, you know, fifteen eighteen
stories tall. I didn't have that.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
So yeah, and imagine having to carry that stamppipe bag.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
I got. I got a story when I was in
one seventy five about when at A one was out
of service. So one seventy five we were working and
going down Picking Avenue, were first do onto Mother Gas
and fires coming out like the twelfth to thirteenth floor.
You know, I'm working with a great captain, Jerry Dobrowski,
(33:34):
very well known in the fight department, Hot Chargia super captain.
We pull up, we look up fires on the thirteenth floor.
It's out like three windows. We're like, okay, let's go.
Two thirty one is the first new engine. They're in
the lobby. We get in the lobby, we go to
hit the elevator. You know, we're going to go two
floors below the fire and there's no elevator now on
(33:59):
the AULUD that's a problem. Like you said, the standpipe
big and everything else. I'm in the truck. Well, what's
the tools we got. I got the full sized rabbit tool,
I got a mall, I got a haligan, I got
my mask, and I got the Captain in front of
me saying okay, let's go thirteen flights of stairs. So
(34:19):
we get we get up to the I get up
to like he's he's like two landings ahead of me.
He's like you coming. I'm like, yeah, I'm working my
way up cap. I'm like a patent area. You know,
I'm carrying, you know, with bunker gear no less, Okay,
I get up to the fire floor. He's down the hallway.
I crawl down the hallway. The fire, you know, the
(34:40):
smoke is out in the hallway. It's bank to the ground.
I get to the door. Captain Debrowski is at the door.
I just looked up before I put my mask on
and say, cap you better hope that that door is open,
because I'm shot. So I am literally shot, and he's like,
all right. So we tried the door and it was
(35:01):
it was open, so I said, thank God. But by
the time we got up there, we made it. We
pushed through the first the first the hallway into the
living room, and then everything just lifted. By the time
we got to the back two bedrooms, there was nothing left.
The fire had burned itself out. There was nothing in there.
I'm like, you mean, I cat, I went thirteen floors
(35:24):
with all of this stuff, not to get any fire duty.
You know, there was there was There was nothing in
the room. It was two mattress springs. That was it.
Everything was concerted.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, jeez, I mean, well, at least your cardio was good.
You know, he got a great cardio out of it.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Well, I got a great cardio. I think I felt
it for a couple of days afterwards.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, I can imagine that. I can imagine that, and yeah, yeah,
that's it. Even again, to your point, even five flights
of stairs is a lot. You're starting to feel it
because it's a heavy. I've carried it once, not up
that many flights of stairs, but just around the firehouse
to get a feel for it where I work, and
it is heavy, and I was doing that without gear.
I was getting a feel for it. My shoulder felt it,
(36:06):
you know. Imagine with seventy five pounds gear. You got
your air pack, you got your mask, you mentioned you
got the rabbit tool. I mean, I'm surprised the fact
that you even made it up thirteen don I would
have died.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
I'll tell you, like I said when I told the
Captain when I crawled down the hallway, he was at
the end of the hallway where the door was. I said,
cap you better hope that door is open, because I'm shot.
I'm literally, I mean, you know, the the canman was
right with me, and like I said, we you know,
as soon as we popped the door, we got in
and we got to the back of the apartment and
(36:37):
everything just like it was like, oh, everything just lifted
because there was nothing left to burn.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Nature did its shop and that.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Besides that, we're hopefully you were in carrying stampipe bags
up that high. The first two engine work anywhere you
go in New York City is fun, especially if you're
in a busy company. First two engine work in Burrow
like Brooklyn, especially back then, which was burning the most
I think out of the five boroughs. I mean maybe
the Brons had to beat a certain areas. Tell me
about that. I mean you mentioned what type of buildings
you had, What are the fires if anny that stick
(37:06):
out where either as the hydrant guy or the pipe
guy you got some good fun.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
Well, it just you know, I just I you know,
being in the engine, being in the truck, being out
in the volleys and teaching the younger crew about engine
werk and truck work. And I'm in a truck in
the volleys on Long Island. I tell them, the best
job in the fire service, hands down, without a doubt,
(37:34):
is the first do nozzle man. Yep, there's there's nothing
that beats that. Nothing. You are the king and everybody's
waiting on you, and it's it's the truth. There's no
better adrenaline rush than being that first do nozzle man
crawling into a wall of fire and you're the guy
(37:54):
that's got to put it out. And I was fortunate
enough where I did do my time, and then I
had those fires. And you know, one of them on
Vermont Street where we come out of quarters one day,
right around the corner. The captain's knocking, the knocking, the
mic on the on the back window. We look up,
(38:16):
we got to walk. You know, fire in the area,
you know, fire in in the in the sky. We
pull up and it's it's fully involved. It's a two
story private dwelling, two story i'd say a apartment. It's
a two family house. And the fire met us at
the front steps. The people bailing out the windows. We've
got a guy that's impailed on the front fence right
(38:40):
through his right through his under side of his chin.
He's impaled. The the ions guy is putting his mask
on and the aluminum morning winds up dripping down his
neck and he winds up going to the burn center.
Because the fire met us at the front doors. So
we go to push in the front door and and
(39:00):
the truck had just pushed on the front door and
collapsed the whole front door down. You know. It was
the front door, then the vestibule door. Well, the front
door just pushed right down, and then the vestibule door
was opened. The fire metastare. I crawled in. I had
the nozzle. The radiator on the floor in the hallway
(39:23):
was glowing orange. That's how hot it was at floor level.
And you know, we wind up pushing through into the
back apartment, and we wound up, you know, I put
out a couple of rooms of fire until we got relieved.
You know, the second line came in and went upstairs.
The funny part, if there can be a funny part,
was about five or six minutes into the fire, after
(39:46):
we make the back apartment, somebody's giving a ten forty
five for a burn victim. Were like, where right, you know,
And it just happened to be when those first that
first set of doors fell down. It fell down on
top of the guy that was there looking back. Maybe
(40:08):
not a bad thing because he was the awesoonist, so
so sympathy. Yeah, so he he actually had a dispute
with a guy on the second floor poured gasoline. Second
floor landing down the stairs, not realizing it's not the
guess that burns, it's the vapors. He goes to torch
(40:30):
it off, and what happens. He gets caught in the
fireball and he gets caught between the two doors and
the first the first two engine, first two truck, second
new engine, second two truck went right over the top
of them. You know, the doors were down, so they
everybody crawled over the doors and went in until somebody
moved the doors and there was the awesomest underneath the doors.
(40:52):
And you know he didn't have a shot. So yeah, yeah, exactly,
exactly exactly so. But but first do, Like I said,
the first do nozzle guy is the guy. There's no
better job in the five service. Trust me when I.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Tell you, you know I've heard it. I believe yep,
I believe it.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
This is volume sixty eight of the best the Bravest
interviews with the Ft and Why is Elite. Don Mormino
is our guest. He spent twenty two years in civil
service to the City of New York six with the
NYPD sixteen with the.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Ft and Y.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
You weren't in one seventy five truck long because he
went to the Marshalls in ninety four. You got to
one seventy five truck in nineteen ninety two. When you
slid across the floor, you loved first two engine work.
Miles of work is where it's at. We both agree
on that truck work though. I mean, listen, after the academy,
I have a newfound respect for not that I didn't
respect him before, but I have a greater respect now
for guys that in gals that do truck work, because
(41:45):
you got to be a beast to do it, and
especially in a place like Brooklyn. One's seventy five truck
man not one of the sneak here. It's it's no
secret that's a good truck to be it because the
work you get, you know, tell us about it.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Extremely extremely respected company still to today. Not a lot
of running, but they do their fair share of fire duty.
And and it was it was a good transition. The
house at the time had just merged when I got there,
so there was still a little back and forth between
(42:22):
the engine and the truck, you know, between the guys
the old timers that were there. But transition for me
was pretty smooth. A lot of guys took me under
their wing, you know, and you know, I was coming
out of the engine and you know, going to the truck,
and they expected to be done their way, and it's
it's it's different work. It's definitely different work. With the engine,
(42:46):
you're with the boss. You went right to the fire,
you know, you put the fire out and that was it.
The truck a little bit different. The roof guy operated
on his own. The OV operated on his own, you know.
The can and the irons went with the boss. But
and again, when you get into the apartment and you
get into the building, you wind up separating, operating on
your own. So they wanted to make sure and the
(43:06):
guys that trained me and the guys that watched over
me made sure that I was comfortable in working by
myself and knowing what to do when to do it okay,
because if it went south, you needed to be able
to handle it on your own, you know, until somebody,
until somebody was able to get to you. And you know,
(43:28):
the OV, you're going to the rear, you going to
the floor above in the rear, you know, and you
know you're going through a window. You know, you're doing
your search, your bite, you're on your own. You know,
you know your opposite. You're working opposite the engine company,
and you some some tough spots to be it. You know.
(43:48):
It's it's the truck work, is right. You got to
be a beast, you know. And you know, like I said,
what I did for a living, I squarre did water
and broke windows and pulled ceilings. That's you know. But
the broke windows and pull ceilings come from the truck end,
and it's tough because you got to open everything up.
Tin ceilings are the worst. You get a tin ceiling
(44:09):
and a lot of those older, old little tenements, you know,
to try and get those ceilings down to get the
fire on the other side of that. It's tough because
you got to really work at it and it would
really put a hurting on you. You know, you had to
be in shape.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Right, And it's not as I've learned been talking with
you guys and then just you know, seeing it for
myself as a volunteer. You know, it's not once the
water goes in the fire, okay, job's done. Overhaul takes forever.
And I'm not complaining when I say that, you know,
I'm just saying, as someone who's witnessed it. Overall takes
a while because you got to make sure there's no
(44:44):
other hotspots, there's no other spread, you didn't miss anything.
You need your legs. It's not just one part of
your body. Oh have strong arms. If you don't have
strong legs, it's fine. You need all of your body
to make overhaul successful, to complete the operation, taking windows anything. So, yeah,
fitness is key. If you don't have, it's just not
gonna be possible.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
You had to make sure you opened everything up because
the rule was is and still till today. You don't
want to be called back there for a rekindled because
it just it just doesn't look good for the company
and not at all. You know, you you go there,
you open everything up, you get water on at the
engine puts water on it, and you know, you make
(45:26):
sure that the window friends, the window frames are trimmed,
the ceilings are open, the wolves down. You know that
fire is not hiding any place, because the last thing
you want to do is look bad and say, ah,
these guys left early and this fire started back up again.
That's the now in the fire service. That's not a yeah,
it doesn't doesn't bode well. With you know, especially with
(45:49):
the companies around you're breaking your shoes, Like how many
times you're going to put this fire out? You know
it just you know we were here before you want
to put it out again, you know. So there's a
lot of a lot of bull breaking that goes on
with that.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
No, absolutely, and it's not the kind that you want either,
for the reasons that you just mentioned. You know, like
I said, what a boring career we've been talking about
for forty five minutes. We haven't even hit the marshals yet, Like,
you know, whatever happened, right, whatever happened thirteen?
Speaker 3 (46:12):
I'm going nowhere.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
I know, I've been.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Enjoying the conversation with you, but we've been covering a
lot of ground. And that brings us to nineteen ninety four.
And you can take the man out of the police department,
but you cannot take the police department out of the
man because you go into essentially what I think is
as someone that loves both and this is no knock
on engine work or truck work and go to a
squad go to rescue. That's cool too, but blending the
(46:38):
best of both both worlds, which you had the chance
to do in the fire Marshals. I mean, on one hand,
you're wearing the police hat, you're using police codes, you
got your side arm with you, and you're out there
doing legit police work. But you still have all the
act and you've built up as a firefighter, and this
is seven years worth of firefighting in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
You're having a great time. You're working in a great house.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
You talked about having a difficult decision earlier to juggle
with leaving the PD, especially about to get your gold
shield to go to FD. Was this the same level
of difficulty leaving a great company to go into the marshals.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
Yes, but let me let me jump in right before
I went to the Marshals when I left. When I
left the PD, I loved doing investigations. I loved being
an investigator. I think I think that was my calling,
or eventually would be my calling in my life, doing investigations.
(47:32):
When I left the PD, I filed for my private
investigator's license, so I had my own private investigation firm.
That I was a sole you know, a sole practitioner
with a pi's license while I was a fireman, So
I was still doing investigations. So I enjoyed it. So
(47:53):
when it came time to go to the marshals and
now go from firefighting and take my fire fighting experience
and going into fire investigations, which is you know, which
leads you know, leads you to other careers which you
know you we'll talk about later, yep. But you know,
(48:13):
one of my bosses told me, you know, I said,
should I take it? One of my bosses who was
in three thirty two engine I talked about it. He
was he was a marshall, John Christy And unfortunately John
was killed on nine to eleven, uh working in working
in Hasmat. But he had been a marshall and I
had said to him, you know, what do you think,
(48:34):
Lou You know, he says, well, I was there and
this is what it was like. And you know, I
did my homework ahead of time. And he said, you know,
depending on how many years you do in the fight department,
he says, there's there's not a lot of calling on
the outside for breaking windows and squirting the water and
carrying flashlights compared to doing investigations. He said, So if
(48:58):
you're looking at doing that later on in your lifetime,
he says, maybe this is a move you should consider
and I took that wholeheartedly, and you know, thanks to
Lieutenant Chrishie, he pretty much made up my mind and said,
you know, you're leaving a good company, you're leaving a
great fire company, but you're moving on, you know. And
(49:18):
I had an uncle that was a battalion chief in
the FDNY, and he said, always keep moving. Five years
in one place, go to something else. Five years in
another place, go something else. And I kind of listened
and I watched his career as he moved through different things,
and as he accelerated in rank. You know, Uncle Bill
(49:40):
wound up retiring, you know, battalion chief out of safety.
But he was always five years here, five years there,
five years here, different burrows. You know, he said, the
move is good. It gives you a well rounded experience.
So transitioning from the fire company to the Marshalls, with
listening to those individuals was pretty much an easy transition.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
It's funny you say that, because I've heard that from
both PD and FT guests in the show. I harke
him back to his story Steve Lodos told on this show,
and who retired out of the bomb squad. He was
previously an emergency service cop as well for the advice
he got early on, like you got here from Lieutenant
Kreshy was bounce round, kid. That was the words he
got from the senior guy of his own. You know,
bounce around kid, same concept, get a little bit of everything.
(50:27):
You're more well rounded as a result. And I knew
he was in has Matt. I didn't know he was
a marshall before he made it to Hassmat.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
Yeah he was, he was. He was a marshall. Then
he went to has Matt. Then he got promoted to lieutenant,
and eventually he wound up in three point thirty two
as my lieutenant. And you know, great, great fire officer,
went to a lot of fires with him, cool calm,
you know, he had the experience, really well rounded individual.
(50:56):
And then eventually he wound up making it back to
has Matt as a lot tennant, you know, and we
all know what happened.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
So sadly, sadly, but you know, much like Ermalasata, he's
not forgotten either. His memory lives on as well for
all the good he did and contributed to the fire service.
So working in the Bronx and Queen's basis as you
did early on, people underestimate, you know, fires scary as
it is when it just happens naturally careless cooking or
you know, faulty electrical wiring. When fire is used as
(51:25):
a weapon, for whatever the case is, people underestimate just
how dangerous a weapon. It can be, even more dangerous
in a gun, even more dangerous in a knife.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
So, working in the Bronx.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
And Queens, fact that you like investigations, what type of
investigations were you doing? Are we talking fireworks, the dealing
illegally of these type of things?
Speaker 2 (51:42):
What was going on besides of course Arsenal.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Well, the Austin is the main thing. You know that
that's you know, but you when when when we got
into the Fine Marshall School, our our main instructor, a
gentleman by the name of Jack McCauley, who was a
supervising fire marshal, another guy, great great marshal, very into
(52:07):
the job. Jack told us it's sometimes not about the
criminal aspect and making collus. It's sometimes about the civil part.
And the civil part is you know what's going on there?
Product liability? What caused this fire? Is it? Is it?
Is it? Is it? Faulty equipment? Is it something that
(52:29):
you know, consumer Product Safety Commission should be aware of.
You know, it's it's not only a criminal aspect, it
could be a you know, a civil aspect where and
the marshals in the City of New York and we
see it now with the Lithium Ion Task Force. They've
taken the forefront on on again the lithium ion industry.
(52:50):
And you know, we took on back then. There was
a marshal that took on the you know, the heater,
the the oil fired trick heaters that had been a
problem in a couple of our fires. We've had a
number of product liability cases where we had to testify
on and it changes the consumer products that go out
(53:16):
into the world. Could be an accidental fire, but it
could still kill somebody. So even though the bad guys
are doing the ausoin for profit or for revenge, the
product liability on the civil side, we're discovering and we're
coming up of. You know, when you see the Consumer
Product Safety Commission put out these things that all these
(53:38):
things are causing fire, well, who do you think is
telling the Consumer Product Safety Commission that these things are
causing fires? What's the fire investigators? You know, when you
go to when you go to multiple fires where a heater,
where you have an oil an oil heater, you know
(54:00):
the electric heaters, and you have six or seven of them, Well,
that pretty much gives you an indication that then may
be a problem here. And and that's and that's the case.
So you know, it's it's not only it's not only
bad guys, it's it's it could be it could be
very innocent. But the job as the fire investigator is
(54:22):
to determine that cause. And it's important.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
I mean, you have fallen members there and at the
same time, even if they're not killed in the line
of duty, if they're seriously injured, all the more reason
to look into it, and not just to rectify that situation,
but also of course to you know, make sure it
doesn't happen again. And ninety four ninety five is interesting
when you get there, Watch Street changed a lot with
the three fatalities there with Ciderberg, Trendon, and uh, Chris
(54:50):
Young I believe was the other.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Yes Young, Trendon Young and Seidenberg.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
Yes, I don't know if it was Chris.
Speaker 1 (54:55):
I think it might have been James Young, Chris Cidenberg,
James I got the names mixed up, but they were
killed in that And of course George Lennard that same year,
he didn't die right away. He was severely injured, and
that was an arsenal fire in June. He died I
believe the next month nineteen ninety five, though I wanted
to ask. I know you got there ninety four, but
I didn't know if you had those two investigations. When
Pete McLachlin got killed at a building you know, out
(55:18):
of Rescue four that was sniper McGlocklin got killed at
a building previously with one hundred and seventy code violations,
did you have that investigation at all?
Speaker 3 (55:25):
No, No, I didn't do that one. No, they had
the SIU of the Special Investigations Unit with the with
the catching Marshall wound up doing that. But again it
comes down to firefighters being injured in the course of duty.
And when you do find that there are these violations
(55:47):
and these illegal renovations, and you know that a contributory
to the death of a firefighter, or a serious injury
or a career ending injury or a firefighter, it may
not be criminal, but civilly at least, you know whatever
whatever was there. Whatever these violations were can be handled
(56:10):
on a civil matter, and I've I've been to court
to testifying behalf of fire fighters in the civil matters
because of these violations, you know. And it's again it's
not criminal, it's it's it's a civil issue, but it
directly is related to his injury and his career ending injury,
you know, and his disability for the rest of his life.
(56:31):
You know.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
Yeah, absolutely, it's important work work.
Speaker 1 (56:34):
You don't want to do the work that's necessary considering
the circumstances. Your question, the channel get to in the moment,
and folks feel free to hit up the super chat
if you want. Mike Caine, he's under the Dame Marshall truck.
He's watching on Facebook. He said this earlier. It says, Hey,
Donnie and Mike. Good to see him. Mike, he says,
it was just looking at pictures of our great impersonator.
Speaker 2 (56:52):
Lol.
Speaker 3 (56:54):
Yeah, that was That was one of my final cases. Uh,
you want me to go into it now.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
We'll touch on it later because I want to know
one order here. I know you had that one towards
two thousand and two, two thousand and three. QC's question is,
did don have either the John Clancy or James William
fire No. I didn't, okay, not have those either before
I get to Douglaston first, because nineteen ninety eight, ninety
nine you're very busy, unfortunately, But these are important cases
(57:20):
to talk about. You remember, of course, your fire arms
and structure will talk about That makes sense giving your
background previously as a police officer the.
Speaker 2 (57:27):
Fireworks task Force.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
Fireworks are illegal in New York City, wink wink, but
it doesn't stop certain people, especially in a condensed compact
environment like New York.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
If something goes wrong, it's going to go really wrong.
So that, especially around fourth and July, had.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
To have been so taxing because it's not just you,
it's the arsenal Explosion Squad of the NYPD. It's the
bomb squad too, because they got to handle this stuff
depending on the severity of it. So it takes eighteen
tell me about that, especially around that time of the
year when things are hectic.
Speaker 3 (57:55):
Well back back when I got asked to participate, it
was a very very small you know, it really wasn't
a task force. It was you know, I was working
and I was working in Queens and you know, the
Marshall's the chief fire Marshal and the assistant Chief fire Marshal.
We're looking to make a collars on fireworks and we
(58:15):
had gotten information that, you know, we had a menu.
A guy had sent down a menu that got delivered
to another guy, you know, auder your fireworks, and so
he gave the case to me. I wound up ordering
a whole bunch of fireworks from this guy, made a
meeting place and in Queens, I went and I purchased
(58:38):
you know, like two hundred dollars worth of fireworks and
coloring the guy in a van in a in a
shopping center parking lot. And that was like the beginning
of this this fireworks team, because then that rolled over
on like oh my god, we got great press on that.
And then it was like, okay, let's build on that
and build on that. And you know, the following year,
(58:59):
these the assistant Chief fire Marshal I'm sorry, supervising fire
marshal who wound up being the assistant chief Later on
Richie mckahey took over the Fireworks task Force and then
we started building on it. You came off the chart,
you came out of your command. You know, we were
starting in June. A year later, we were starting in May.
(59:20):
The year before that, we were starting in April, and
we started building upon it, and the year the years
that I was on it, you know, Mayor Giuliani, that
was his big thing. The fire department response on the
fourth of July was tremendous. The amount of working fires
(59:41):
on that evening was you know, the dispatcher would tell
you pick a block and just pick a fire. You know,
that's how many. That's how many fires there were. And
they had the reserve apparatus, and they had all the
Burroughs had reserve apparatus and everything else. What was more
concerning to Juliani at the time, and I give him
a lot credit, was the number of civilian injuries due
(01:00:03):
to fireworks, and it was in triple digits, and a
lot of people got some serious, serious injuries. And that's
what he wanted to quell, was the serious injuries along
with the millions of dollars of property damage. You know,
you got you got Bill and Bob in the middle
of the street setting fireworks off, and everybody's going, ooh,
(01:00:24):
our fireworks, Oh look at the rockets. Everything else, but
missus Johnson is down the block when the when the
wayward rocket lands in her gutter or on the roof
of her house, and now she's out of a house
because her house is burnt to the ground because of
these guys down the block shooting fireworks. And it was commonplace.
(01:00:46):
So as we built up this task force, we we
started working with NYPD with US and explosion. Then we
brought in the ATF and their expertise to buy squad
was always a part of it. The marshals and the
public morals units in the NYPD got involved with us
(01:01:07):
and we built this thing, this task force, and we
would share information. As part of that task force, we
executed arrests in I've been to Pennsylvania and took down
an entire fireworks factory in Pennsylvania. I mean literally track
the trailer loads of illegal fireworks heading for New York
(01:01:29):
uh in the swamps and rare it in New Jersey.
The bunkers that that sit and rear it in New
Jersey off the off the docks filled these these these
little warehouses filled to the brim with fireworks that were
just waiting to come across the border. And we were
building these cases and the rare in New Jersey. I
(01:01:52):
think we took three tractor trailer loads of fireworks, you know,
like a month before Fourth of July. They're not late,
they weren't legal stuff. It was all illegal stuff, you know,
and it was all destined for the street. And one
or two years at the end when I was on it,
the injuries went down to single digits, going from triple
(01:02:14):
digits to single digits, and the fire response went to
like almost a normal night tour because NYPD was all in,
the fire marshals were all in, atf was all in
the pm D units where OCCBPMD units were all in,
and we were just taking all of these guys on
(01:02:37):
the street that these these house stashes. We did search
warrants on houses. I hit a house in the Bronx
when I was a Bronx. When I was a Bronx
marshal in the very beginning when this started, I was
basically watching the house and I catched two people coming
out of the house with a shopping bag. Okay, because
we had a we had a tip they got fireworks.
(01:02:58):
I wound up flipping them. They give up the house.
I go to the DA's office, I get a search warrant,
eight o'clock the next morning, we hit the house with
a search warrant. The guy's got a patio in the
back of the house, a covered patio. It's set up
like a supermarket, so it's just, oh, what do you
want bottle rockets? So that's in section one, what do
you want firecrackts? Section two, cones section three. It was
(01:03:21):
set up like a supermarket, and this guy was supplying
the neighborhood. So and it excelled from there. The biggest
thing with the fireworks is and the leverage that we
had to flip these people to go to bigger and
better because as you do investigations, you start with the
little fish to work up to the big fish. Is
(01:03:41):
the M E d's, the M one hundreds, the M
two fifties, whatever they want to call them. Those are
those are the you know, the ash cans that the
M E d's, the ones that aren't regulated by the
fireworks industry overseas. These are actually, according to the Penal law,
unclassified explosives. It's a felony, believe it, believe it or not.
(01:04:08):
An eight and a plane wrapper with a fuse that's
about the size of a pill bottle could be considered
by the law as an unclassified explosive because it's because
of the amount of gunpowder and the amount of devastation.
So when you start to work with that and you
start charging these people with felonies, whether the DA's office
(01:04:29):
decided that they were going to go with it or not,
you held something over their head. Well you'll get the misdemeanor,
or you get the summons, or I'm charging you with
a felony and taking you to Central Book and where
you're going to get three hots and a cop. So
you know, and they start singing, and that's how we've
built our cases up. And then it just morphed. And
(01:04:52):
those years that I was on that task force, I
worked in every single borough. We made arrests in every
single baro. I went to Pennsylvania, I went to Jersey.
It was it was great, it was great. I was
off the chart. And then the culmination is I worked
July fourth night and got to see the fireworks show
Midtown Manhattan. So but you know, a lot of great marshals,
(01:05:17):
a lot of great investigators. Again not I. It's a team.
I worked on a great team, the task force. Mike
Kane was part of that team, a couple of other
guys really good. Stevie Stepanidis was a supervisor fire marshal.
He was part of that team. We had a really
good group of guys that that that worked together hard
(01:05:41):
and uh for course, and to bring that those those
injuries down from triple digits down to single digits. The
one year, I think there was seven fireworks injuries.
Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Seven in a city of eight million, minds you exactly.
Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
And and because the burn notification law and the burn
injuries and everything else, everything was being tracked and it was,
like Giuliani said, he says, I can't believe what you
guys did. I said, you know, if you have the resources,
you have the time, and you have the people that
want to do it, you know we can do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
So yep, and he adds Maryland in there too, Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:06:18):
We went to Maryland also. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
No, I mean, and it's it's impressive, like I said,
because of the population size. And some people may think, oh,
they're just cracking down on fun. Well it's off footing games,
like you said, until somebody loses their house, somebody loses
the limb, somebody loses their life.
Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
Well, the fire duty, like I said, the fire duty,
the reserve apparatus. Listen, we all know that every fireman
wants to go to fires. Okay, that's that's what we do.
You know, as as crazy it sounds, you know, the rush,
the adrenaline rush. People jump out of airplanes as parachutists
because they like the a genlemane rush. Firefighters like to
(01:06:54):
go to flys because of the adrenaline rush. And we're
doing something good. And you know when when we the
years that we did the fireworks task for us, the
guys that were on the reserve apparatus, you know, everybody
used to fight to get over time to do that.
Not those years, the fire duty was like next to nothing,
(01:07:16):
and we, like I said, we put a hurting on them.
And we were locking the same people up year after year.
If if if if Joey from Joey from Bensonhurst, Okay,
and and and you know and in one year he
was doing it. Well, don't you think that in April
and May of next year, we were sitting on Joey's
house watching Joey load cases from his car into his house. Again,
(01:07:39):
how stupid can you be?
Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Exactly keep your business well?
Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
And like I said, if the criminals weren't stupid, we'd
be out of a job.
Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
So yeah, what a concept. Find a recidivist, arrest the recidivus,
keep the recidivist in jail, and crime goes down.
Speaker 3 (01:07:56):
Thought, jeez, look at that, Look at that? Are fighting that?
And now.
Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
What a concept? What a concept?
Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
You know, again, very important work, very good work, and
I'm glad I was able to ask you about it,
because again, you know, that's a busy time of year
for you guys. And I think what helped the two
before we move on into Douglas and Arson and the Folifier,
is that lou Garcia who had it later the charge
of the Marshalls, that is, and Jerry Shehan, who was
the commanding officer at the time of Arson explosion, later
the bomb squad. They got along great. So when you
(01:08:26):
have those two, I mean that there's always a sibling
rivalry between FD and PD. You understand that better than anybody.
But when you have two commanding officers like that of
two powerful units who happened to be great friends outside
of work, it affected the work in a positive way.
Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
Right Well, at that very first case where I bought
those fireworks from that from that shopping Center from that
guy in the van. Lou Garcia was the assistant chief
Fire Marshall who kind of said it's yours, work with
it and work with supervisor was Jimmy Kelty at the time.
If he said, you work with you, work with Jimmy
(01:09:00):
and you make this happen. And we did, and he
was Lou was was was extremely happy when you were
making college and you were doing your job. He was
the happiest man in the world, you know, and I
respect him for that because he wanted guys to do
the job. Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
Lou was on the show a while ago, as was
Lieutenant Sheen for both My Bomb Squad mini series and
Lou for the Best of the Bravest. Both great interviews
and they talked about that at length. You know, they
were bosses that their philosophy. And remember Lieutenant Sheen saying this,
you don't work for me, you work with me. You
know that kind of spirit guys are willing to go to.
You know, guys and Galzaike will go the extra mile
(01:09:37):
for you every single.
Speaker 3 (01:09:38):
Time, absolutely without a doubt. It becomes a team effort.
Your boss is really not your boss, but he's you know,
ultimately he has to answer for it, but he you know,
you're working with him, He's working with you, right.
Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
It's a good feeling actually.
Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
Quick side note, because Chief Chancey had the Marshals for
a little bit and when Mike Kane was on, I
asked Mike Kine about this Chief Chancy.
Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
You know, the Marshalls went.
Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Through a little bit of period of a tumult, shall
we say, late eighties, early nineties. Chief Gancy kind of
steadied the ship. You had him for a little bit
as your boss before Luke took it over completely. What
was he like to work for?
Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Absolute gentleman, a very absolute gentleman. He was from my town,
so I knew him. I knew him from the outside
as to know him, but then when I became a Marshall,
I got to know him better. And of course we
had townspeople that we had in common that were friends
(01:10:32):
of both of ours. He was an absolute gentleman. He
got it. He you know, some guys they don't get it.
He got and he was just a pleasure to work for.
He was like, do your job, don't make me look bad,
and let's get the job done. And unfortunately it was
(01:10:54):
a time where the hired I think we were one
hundred marshals and the budget cuts came in and as
fast as we were hired, they were detailing marshals back
to the firehouse until they could come back through attrition.
There was a time it was only a marshall a
couple of months, and you know the operating strengths, say
(01:11:18):
it was like three hundred, and the budget called for
an operating strength of two hundred, so they had to
send a hundred marshals back to the firehouse. And what
they did was is they took the marshals that were
already tenured marshals and they gave him them the first
choice whether they wanted to go back and operate in
(01:11:38):
their companies as a firefighter with a fire marshal title,
and then eventually worked their way back through attrition. I
happened to be high on the list with the marshal's
list when the list came out, so I needed a
couple of guys from the tenured marshals to go back,
and I actually stayed, so I never went back. But
(01:12:01):
it took almost two years or maybe even more for
the marshals that got detailed back to the firehouse to
actually come back into the bureau, it was, and that
was a tough time for Chief Guancy because he had
to deal with you know, acting out of title. You
had marshals that didn't get ross the staffing, but when
they went back to the firehouse, they got ross the staffing.
(01:12:23):
And you know, it was a different pay grades. Why
is he getting more pay than me? And you know,
it was a tough time, and he weathered the storm
and he did it right, and he got everybody through
it until the bureau came back, and you know, we
got back to our operating strength through attrition.
Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Like I said, steadied the boat. And that was one
of and people remember him more. And I was fortunate
to interview him too before he left us a couple
of years ago. Ironically, on September eleventh, Commissioner Safer, you know,
when he was talking about his time as fire commission
before he jumped over to the job he really want
and it was also very good at it, and that's
police commission. You know, he said, I needed somebody who
could provide a steady presence, and I knew Pete was
(01:13:04):
that guy. And sure enough, you know, whatever Pete touched
in the fire department, it turned to gold. And that
was one of those operations where I'm you know, looking
back on it and reading on it. It was a
good decision by Commissioner Safer for sure to put him
at the helm of that. So that brings us finally
into this case, which was not settled until these individuals
were convicted in July of two thousand and one. So
(01:13:24):
it's May of nineteen ninety eight. There is one hundred
and twenty five thousand dollars worth of damage costs at
his home in Douglaston. So because this is a melting
pot of a case here for two reasons. One obviously
it's an arsenal. Two it doubles as something of a
hate crime potentially because the reason why they set this
fire the first place, they thought one of the people
living there was gay evidently, so they torched the place
(01:13:46):
one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars worth of damage.
You're not dealing with one suspect, You're dealing with multiple
a lot of different angles here.
Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
Tell me about working this case right.
Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
So the case, the case was originally investigated, and you know,
they really couldn't put the pieces together on you know who,
these who, these perpetrators are or how the how the
scenario went down and everything else. The the woman who
owned the the condo, her name is Susan, she's probably
(01:14:18):
listening right now, who I'm still friends with today. She
had heard through her her children that there were other
people responsible to this, and she didn't She didn't give
up on the case. Although the original Marshall kind of
let it sit and you know, and it it just
went nowhere and again, time constraints and everything else. She
(01:14:43):
finally got to her local politicians and had the politician
called the I think it was one of the assembly
people called the fire commissioner, and the fire commissioner kicked
the case back to Special Investigations and Queen's which was
me and a couple other guys, and they said, okay, let's,
you know, run with it. So I interviewed her, I
(01:15:05):
interviewed the family. We started getting some names together. I
told her, look, you know, we're gonna try and piece
this thing together. You got to understand that it's two
years later, the case has gone cold, and I'm kind
of starting from scratch. It took me about a month
a month and a half with my partner Louis Rossi
(01:15:25):
and Richie McCurry, and we kind of started looking at
the names of the people that may have been involved,
because you know, let's face it, they were they weren't juveniles,
they were young adults, and they were all in that
senior year of high school and maybe just out of
(01:15:46):
high school, and a lot of people were talking and
names started to surface. So we picked one name and
we ran with that, and we actually wound up getting
into that individual and approaching him and he kind of
folded like wet codboard and he's like, uh, you know,
(01:16:08):
interviewing interrogation techniques is an art. Okay if you're if
you're semi good at it, you can get a lot accomplished.
But it's an art form. And we interviewed this guy
and I interviewed him with some senior guys, and he
(01:16:28):
started to give this up. So now we had the
names of the players and we're like, okay. So I
go to Susan and I'm like, okay, look, we got
the names of some of these players and everything else.
You know, do you recognize them and them? And she said,
this one individual actually went to Hebrew school with my
son and they went to each other's bah Mitztiz and
(01:16:50):
everything else, and I can't believe that he was part
of this. I'm like, well, this is what we're getting.
We're gonna We're gonna do this. So I take out
are now confidential informant, and I make an appointment with
the DA's office, and I go to the Queen's DA's
office and I lay out the whole case with what
we have. He tells us that the explosive device that
(01:17:14):
was used was an m ad firework taped to a
hairs break can, which was purchased out of a CBS
in Douglaston. So now we're putting the pieces together. The
explosive device winds up on the window sill of the apartment.
(01:17:34):
It gets ignited, it blows in through the window, torches
the bedroom, and then takes the contents of the apartment out,
chasing the people in the apartment out. I think it
was her daughter and her husband were home at the time.
She and her son, I believe were the movies. She
came home to look at the fight apartment operating at
(01:17:56):
their house, and her daughter and her husband would just
standing there in or that this had just happened. So
we get this guy to give it up. The DA's
office has kind of given us a hard time. It's like,
you really, I know what you got. You got a
confidential informant, but you got to understand he was part
of it. And then there's a section of the law
(01:18:18):
that says a co conspirator, the statement of a co
conspirator isn't enough that you need coroborating evidence. So this
just the statement of the co conspirator really wasn't good enough.
And the DA's office says, although you have probably enough
for an arrest, you got to get more. You need
a confession. So we assemble this quasi task force in
(01:18:43):
Queens along with the SIU out of Brooklyn at of
Hoopah Street, and we said, okay, we now have the
five individuals. I've been to their homes four or five
o'clock in the morning. I'm trying to pattern them now
when they come out, when they leave, what they're driving,
because I don't want them to disappear on me. Okay,
and we're getting closer, so we decide that The boss says, okay, look,
(01:19:07):
this is what I said to the boss. I said, look,
let's do this. Let's scoop them all at the same time,
let's do a giant sweep. I said, But here's how
we're going to play this. It's like, okay, I'm all ears,
I said, We're going to bring him into the Queen's base.
I said, We're going to line up five rooms in
the Queen's base, I says, and as each team brings
(01:19:32):
their individual in, he's going to pass through those rooms
and see the individuals that are already there. So the
first guy lands, the second guy, I grab, I bring
him back. I parade him through the first room into
the second room. He sees the first guy already sitting there,
(01:19:52):
and then got the third guy, sees the first and
the second guy. The fourth guy sees the first, second,
and third guy, and so on. So now we all
know that they're all there, right, and now comes into
get in. You know, the interrogation and interview. You know,
you reading the Miranda warnings, you basically tell them they
all they all know what they did, and they all
(01:20:16):
know that they're all there. So now they know who's
going to be the first one to get the cart.
And I interview one of the individuals and I get
a statement, I get a confession, and then the other
investigators that were there that worked with me. We wound
up getting confessions. We wound up getting five solid confessions.
(01:20:40):
The problem was, is all five put the confidential informant
as the guy that put the explosive on the on
the wetch mccaulley on the window. So now I got
a problem with him because now the DA's office tells
me he's got to go.
Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
I'm like, understandably, but still so with that, we go to.
Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
We start to go to trial. And we had a great,
a great assistant district attorney in the Economic Crimes unit
in Queen's Okay, and he was he was great. And
I bring him this case and he's talking with the complainant,
(01:21:25):
Susan and her family, and she is she is adamant
that you know that these individuals could do this and
rightfully wrong. They all got Oh by the way, they
all got charged with austin in the first degree, which
is an a felony, okay, which is twenty five to
life okay, because it was an explosion, it was you
(01:21:47):
the fire was caused with the use of an explosive.
Remember we talked about the M eighty unclassified explosive. So
now now we have Austin in the first degree by
the use of an explosive. They were all charged with
an a one felony looking at twenty five for life.
So what do you think they're going to do, Like
(01:22:08):
somebody won't the chat, it's let's make a deal. So
Dave Chen, who was Dave Chen Great prosecutor worked in
the DA's office, puts together this deal and says, look,
we can do this and this, and Susan had said,
you know what about restitution, and he said, I will
(01:22:29):
make that part of it, but I will make this
what they call a global deal. He said, they all
have to take it. If nobody takes it, we go
to trial. So now you understand the pressure that the
five families have to all take the deal because if
somebody turns it down, nobody gets the deal. And part
(01:22:52):
of that global agreement was restitution to the victims. And
at sentencing, oh and Susan and her family were adamant
that the individual who was the ringleader that went to
Hebrew School and Bob Mitzvvih's with the family with the son.
(01:23:13):
She was adamant that he had to do jail time
otherwise it wasn't a deal, and Dave went to the attorneys,
the five attorneys in conference and said, here's the deal. Restitution.
It was like ten thousand dollars of person for each
of them, okay, and this guy has to do jail
(01:23:37):
time otherwise it's no deal. And they took it. And
the guy, the one guy, did a year in jail,
and all the families wound up paying her back for
all the damage to her home and her contents at
her home. Again, when you lose something as devastating as that,
and you lose these personal items in the house, there
(01:23:58):
isn't enough money in the world that place that right
that was probably made her somewhat whole. And that was
probably one of my most satisfying cases that I handled,
that we were able to take this cold case, build
it up, get restitution for the family, and put a
guy in jail and and get and get six convictions,
(01:24:22):
and and and and the co conspirator, because he had
a record, he did a year in jail too. So
we had two guys that did a year in jail, okay,
and the other four took please and the family got
restitution and was able to replace the items in their
home that you know from from what was lost during the.
Speaker 1 (01:24:41):
Fire flipping suspects against each other and that the person
that made that, let's make a deal comment Sergeant ken
Bow and shout out to him.
Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
He retired out of the Emergency Service Unit Truck two
in Harlem.
Speaker 3 (01:24:52):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:24:53):
You know, it's one of the more brilliant tactics in
policing that you utilize. It's an angel tactic, but it
works like a charm every time steel President Lincoln saying,
you know, listen, a house divided against itself will not stand.
Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
So when you take in the people that you think it.
Speaker 3 (01:25:07):
Was, it was it Listen to me. You know, we
came up to it maybe, you know, like I said,
and I go back to my investigative experience, the guys
I worked with in the NYPD. I watched these guys
in the seven to five squad and in the Anti
crime unit, and I saw the way they interviewed people,
and I saw the way they played that and it's
a huge learning experience and I learned, Like I said,
(01:25:30):
I learned from the best, you know, and it was
a learning experience for me. And then to actually put
it into fruition to work and make it work. And
they folded like what cardboard. I mean, when they walked
in and they all saw that, they were all there,
what are they going to say? It really is nothing
to say. You know, they're done. That's it. It's like
(01:25:53):
who's getting the carrot, who's getting the deal? And right,
you know, it worked out and the end game was
worked out.
Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
You know, like I said, you can take the man
out of the police department. I can't take the police
department out of the man. And it showed there. That
was a great case. Took a while through. I mean,
as these cases do. They started in May of nineteen
ninety eight. It doesn't seem like that long. It ended
only three years later in court in July two thousand
and one. But if you're the person going through it,
it's a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (01:26:20):
Yeah. Yeah, And and the family was very appreciative. I mean,
I am still in contact with them till today. I
do get messages, you know, every now and then from them,
But I'm glad to see they're all doing well, and
you know, they're very appreciative. But again, it's just it's
(01:26:42):
just a job that we do and to you know,
to do that job to be so satisfying, and that's
that's a great thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:26:52):
Of course, of course, and you were just scratching the
surface here. And I'll get to Captain Fowler now, because
there was that in father's day. There are a line
of duty deaths, I guess I could put it this way,
that change a lot. Each one is very impactful, you know,
there's no greater line of duty death than the other.
It's sad all the same, but there's some that have
legs for decades because of the changes that came out
(01:27:13):
of it. Wash Street was one of those after and
why I got bunker gear out of it as a result.
Speaker 4 (01:27:18):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:27:18):
Of course, we go into Atlantic Avenue in nineteen ninety eight,
Vandalia Avenue as well that same year, same thing.
Speaker 2 (01:27:25):
Captain Fowler changed a lot as well.
Speaker 1 (01:27:27):
And now to set the stage in the report and
its entirety is available online for those of you interested
in reading it. It was a basement fire. He had
approb with them, dedicated experienced fire officer. At some point
he's trying to get the probey out of the basement.
There had been a collapse of some sort on the
floor above, and they're running a little on air. This
is the stuff, and I'm not being facetious at all.
When I say this, ask anybody with fire service experience.
(01:27:50):
I don't care where you work. This is the stuff
nightmares are made of.
Speaker 2 (01:27:53):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
If there's ever a textbook chills, standing up on our hair,
standing up with the back of your neck, chills down
your spines, it's this one. He transmits to May day,
he loses consciences. Shortly after that they find him. It
takes a long time to get him out of there,
and unfortunately, the next day he died of his injuries.
You had that investigation, uh, and they were called you know,
almost pack rack or pack rat rather conditions.
Speaker 2 (01:28:16):
In that home. Yes, it's not easy go into it.
Speaker 3 (01:28:19):
Yeah, hoarding hoarding conditions. Okay, it used to be called
something else, but you're not allowed to use that terminology anyway,
Collier's mansion because it wasn't politically correct, but it was.
It was a pack rat condition in the basement I
was working in Queen's of course. You know we talked
(01:28:40):
earlier about listening to the scanner. The scanner is always on.
I'm always listening to what's going on till today, the
scanner is on in the background. I'm listening to you know,
whatever's going on. I heard things going fast, very fast,
going bad, very fast, and I grabbed the boss. I said, look,
this don't sound good to calling Mayday's. I said, I'm
(01:29:02):
heading out. I grabbed my partner and we jump in
the car and we just shoot down from four tott
and we shoot right down to the fire scene. I
get to the fire scene and I'm there right away.
I mean I must have got there in like six minutes. Okay,
Unfortunately Captain Fowler was still in the basement at that time.
(01:29:23):
My job, again as the investigator, knowing that I'm catching
this case, you want to grab everything as much information
as you can, as fast as you can, especially when
it comes to the origin and the cause of the fire.
Because now you know, I'm listening and I'm watching what's
going down at the tremendous heroic effort by the companies
(01:29:50):
on the scene trying to get him out of the basement.
I mean literally guys diving down the stairs to try
and get in to the basement to get him out. Okay,
right away, I go right to the source. I grabbed
the owner of the building. What happened? What you know,
(01:30:12):
before he could even think or think up a story
or you know, make something up. It's like, they're ten
to fifteen minutes into the fire, what happened, What did
you do? What did you see? What went on? And
he puts together a scenario for me, and I'm like, okay,
I'm comfortable with that. I mean, my interview with the
homeowner and the occupant of the building was done in
(01:30:33):
the first fifteen minutes of the fire, which later on
he really didn't have time to think about what he
was saying. He was just telling me how a transitioned,
which could come out later when we did the physical examination,
how everything played into effect. The guys on, the guys
(01:30:54):
on the company on the fireground did a phenomenal job.
And when they finally got Captain foul out, we got
into the hospital, we knew it wasn't good, and you know,
the firefighting operations ceased. Now it was up to me
to now try to piece this thing together because now
(01:31:14):
I had a very seriously injured firefighter. I am going
to be responsible for the investigation. It really it's a
it's it's sitting heavy on my shoulders. I gotta do
the right thing. I got to find out what happened
and I'm working with Mike, my partner, and we're like, okay,
we're getting into the night. We're like, look, we've got
(01:31:36):
to secure the scene. We can't work at night. We
can't see nothing. We have a collapse in the basement.
So we come back it the next morning, we go
We go back to the base some like twelve one
o'clock in the morning. We're getting stuff done. We go back.
The next morning. We call Rescue Rescue four to come
(01:31:57):
shore up the basement for us. They come in. We
had a partial collapse in the rear. They come in,
they show the basement up, and now we start digging,
and now we're starting to put the scenario together. The
hoarding conditions. You can just imagine between the structural components
(01:32:18):
of the building, the firefighters overhaul what was already in
the building. It's not bad when you have a second
floor fire and the guys throw the stuff out the window,
you know, down down, down to the ground. It's when
it's in the basement, it really doesn't get moved from
the basement out to the ground. It's got to go
up instead of going down. So it was just spread
(01:32:40):
out across the basement. And then we started little at
a time. It took us probably eight to ten hours
of methodically searching through the basement and putting together and
replacing items that we could tell we knew what was
where until we came to this seat of what we
(01:33:00):
believed was the cause of the fire, and we found it.
We found it. It was in the back room, and
it matched perfectly the scenario that he had told us
the day before, the owner had told us. We traced
back the electrical circuits. We looked at the electrical circus,
we looked at the wiring, we looked at the room,
(01:33:21):
We looked at the damage from the area of least damage.
We worked back to the area of most damage, because
that's where the fire burned longer. We put this whole
scenario together, and unfortunately, while we were doing that, Captain
Fowler did pass away. So now I knew that I
had a fatal fire that I was ultimately going to
(01:33:43):
be responsible for. And again that brings in was it intentional?
Was it accidental? Was it accidental? Was there going to
be civil liability over a defective product? You gotta dot
your eyes, crush your t's, and you've got to be
straight on with You got to make sure everything is perfect,
because you just lost the brother and you got to
(01:34:06):
make sure that you find out exactly what happened. And
for a couple of days we were there, we wound
up putting together a fact scenario and again photographs, sketches, documentation,
sending stuff to to crime labs, to the laboratories to
(01:34:27):
be tested, and ultimately we came out and we were
extremely confident with our decision. In fact, we were we
were absolutely one hundred percent certain of what caused the fire.
And you know, that's what it was. You know, it's
just an electrical malfunction in a in an extension in
(01:34:47):
a in a set of electrical wiring that was used
as an extension court. And but and again the tremendous
effort by the fire service and the fire fighter that
were there, and some guys got seriously injured. I believe
it was I think it was Jimmy Earle, who was
a fireman in one twenty who I had worked with
(01:35:11):
on a number of occasions. He wound up seriously getting
burned and wound up some time in the burn center
based on his rescue efforts, and a lot of guys
got hurt, and you know, unfortunately. Captain Fowler was probably
the precipice of the fast teams because, you know, a
(01:35:33):
designated team in the event, and not only a designated team,
but the the methods used in firefighter removal had to
be homed because you know, everything is webbing, netting, harnesses, ropes,
(01:35:56):
that all came I think out of that because of
the condition of Captive Foul because when he came out,
you know, like I said, you know he you know,
he was in tough shape. He was in tough shape,
but everybody was trying to get him up those stairs
and he was a big gentleman and it was tough.
It was a narrow set of stairs, I mean narrow,
(01:36:17):
like basically shoulder width. And you know, I think a
lot of as bad as it is, a lot of
good came out with Firefighter you know, fast truck operations.
And that's the reason they have that fast truck now
is when something goes bad, that's one team that goes
right to work.
Speaker 2 (01:36:35):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (01:36:36):
And certain rick carrys came out of that as well,
not that you know rick carries didn't exist before, but
certain methods, specifically four scenarios like that emerged out of it,
you know. Unfortunately, and this is true for both police
and for fire a lot of the modern day tactics
that are saving either police officers or firefighters' lives. Where again,
to put it bloodly written in blood, somebody had to
(01:36:57):
seriously hurt, somebody had to die at the light of
duty for these changes to happen. It's unfortunate, but unfortunately
there is a silver lining. The sacrifice isn't in vain
and Captain Fowler, who knows. Unfortunately, we wish he was
still here, obviously, but his death has brought about a
lot of changes that who knows how many lives have
been saved because of training, specifically for scenarios that unfortunately
(01:37:20):
killed him.
Speaker 3 (01:37:22):
Very true.
Speaker 1 (01:37:24):
Thank you for diving into that investigation before I continue,
I didn't want to miss this question either from Steve
Irodo going back earlier to the f eighties. I'm sorry
Steve I missed this originally since but the m AD
being an unclassified explosive, was that in New York City,
New York State or federal situation in the DATF even
file charges with.
Speaker 3 (01:37:40):
That that the M eighty's actually covering under the penal law.
Oh really, it's listed in the definitions. I think it's
still listed in the definitions of the penal law of
what an explosive is and what's an unclassified explosive. Yeah,
it's it's it's like two sixty five. It's like two
sixty five at a penal law. I think so in
the beginning of the penal law. Oh, you've got the
(01:38:00):
whole thing of definitions. So when you go through it,
like I said, if you look at the Austin Statute
by the use of an explosive or possession of explosives,
you'll see that. You know, it's a penal law charge
and it's there. Well, it was there. I don't know,
it could have changed, and it's been a few years,
(01:38:22):
but that's what it was. It was unclassified explosives a
New York state penal law. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:38:27):
Again that you talked about the devastation can cause earlier,
so it makes sense that it would receive a classification
like that. Billy Dennis, I see your question. You two
overlapped for the Marshall's office before he went back to
the line. He retired in early September of two thousand
and one, right before nine to eleven. I'm going to
replace one of the rapid fire questions, or add that
question to the rapid fire. So I do see it.
I'll get to it later at the appropriate time.
Speaker 2 (01:38:48):
Building. Good to see you, my friend.
Speaker 1 (01:38:50):
So it's eerie because Vinnie phllerfire in June of two
thousand and one, a staircase is at the center of
this investigation or one of the things we were looking
into when the collapse occurred. Father's Day fire two years later,
not too long after the anniversary of Vinnie. That was
June third, two weeks later, June seventeenth, two thousand and one,
two years and two weeks later, June seventeenth, two thousand
(01:39:10):
and one, staircase again at the center of this investigation,
and again kids playing around, not that that was the
case in Vinnie's, but kids playing around causes a massive explosion.
Staircase collapses, guys are trapped, they're low on air, they're
transmitting Mayda's like Vinnie was, and can't get out. I
always got the operational aspect of it, listening to Kevin
talk about that fire on Salty and other guys too.
(01:39:32):
I never got the investigation aspect of it, though, And
that's why I'm glad you're here. Vinnie was a tough one.
This I imagine was an even tougher one. So just
tell me about that day and then trying to put
the pieces together as to far as what the heck happened.
Speaker 3 (01:39:46):
Again, it's a Sunday. I'm home. It's Father's Day, I
just said, got to my brother's house for dinner. I
was assigned to the special investigations in Queen's and we
had a response criteria. Unfortunately, this met the response criteria too,
you know, uh to respond in. So I responded in
from home. I got to the scene. The explosion had
(01:40:10):
already occurred. We knew that two firefighters had had already perished,
and the third one was still in the building. Again,
a herculean effort by the members of the service to
get to you know, I think it was Fahi right.
(01:40:35):
It was still it was still in the basement, guys
trying because of just the devastation and the explosion of
the building. You can imagine a two story building just
crumbling down to the ground and trying to get into
that area. We go back to Chief Guancy and Chief
(01:40:58):
Gancy was on the scene in civilian clothes with a
mask on his back. Trying to make the basement. I mean,
you know there was. It didn't make a difference who
you are, what position you held. Here's a guy that's
the top guy in the fight apartment and he's in
civilian clothes with a mask on, trying to make the
basement because we knew that there was a guy down there.
(01:41:20):
For the marshals, again, separate from the firefighting aspect, we
need to put a case scenario together. We now know
that we have two firefighters that were killed in a
line of duty, we possibly have a third. What's the
fact pattern here, what happened? Where are we going? How
are we doing this? John Fapiano, who is the marshal
(01:41:41):
from Queens who was working that day, he was assigned
the case. It was his case. Me being in the
special investigations of the SIU, I kind of partnered up
with John and his partner to work along with them
and help them along in the investigation. Over the next
(01:42:02):
few days, well that day, we were able to put
together through the interviews of a lot of marshals on
the scene, a lot of from the Hooper Street SIU,
a lot from Queens. I think they called in marshals
from other Burroughs. We put together a fact scenario that
these kids were kind of playing in the back of
(01:42:24):
the building and they may had a part of it,
and we kind of got, well, maybe they were playing
with a gas can. So me and two of the
other marshals we kind of concentrated on, well, if these
kids were playing with a gas can, we got to
get to that. So we kind of circumvented the firefighting operation,
got to the rear of the building and climbing down
(01:42:45):
into the area where the basement bilgo doors were. And
I wound up sliding down like almost like a brick
wall into that area and actually wound up finding the
gas can right at the basement door, and you know,
I secured it, photographed it, brought it back up. I
(01:43:08):
said to him, I got the gas camp. They're like,
I got the gas can't put it together. And then
it wound up that these kids were playing around in
the back, they were looking to spray paint and do
whatever kids do in the back of this hardware store,
and they had inadvertently knocked over this gasoline can that
(01:43:31):
was back there. And we all know that, you know,
gasoline fumes have a way of traveling and it's not
the gas that burns, it's the fumes that burn right
at the base of the Builco doors. The gasoline fumes
went underneath the door, and it's unfortunate that on the
other side of the door was the hot water heater
(01:43:52):
for the building, which then became the source of ignission.
So after, you know, after the scene was secured, we
kind of had a scenario of okay, the origin or
area or the fire. We didn't have a fact pattern
yet of what caused the fire, but we started putting
pieces together and John John put this put a great
(01:44:16):
case together. We worked along with the Safety Division because
now the Safety had three firefighters that were killed in
the light and duty and it was our responsibility as
the marshals but to determine the cause of why three
of our brothers are now gone. And you can imagine
(01:44:36):
the pressure that was on us to get the soul done.
And for days we worked along with Safety. Basically they
did their safety investigation based on what went right and
what went wrong. As we did was where the where
the where the origin and where what was the cause?
And working in tandem with Safety, we were able to
(01:44:59):
determine that these gas fumes migrated under the door and ignited.
The were ignited from the hot water heater. And if
you could, if you could believe that they you know,
you hear an awesome investigation the V pattern, the V
pattern where you know, looking at this hot water heater
and you may have a picture of it. I'm not
(01:45:19):
sure you could actually see the V pattern coming from
the ignition box of the hot water heater as it
traveled out of the flashburn where it ignited, coming out
of the bottom of the hot water heater. And after this,
I think it was the second day, we pulled the
(01:45:40):
hot water heater out and we put together this whole scenario. Now,
as for the fire and the cause of the explosion,
there was a hardware store. What's in a hardware store.
Just imagine going to the local hardware store in your neighborhood.
You've got probably euthans, You've got thinners, you uh, you know, gases,
(01:46:01):
You've got combustable material, you've got paints. All of this
stuff is when it becomes superheated, now expands, let saw
films until it reaches a point of ignition and then
simultaneous explodes. And the explosion was absolutely devastating. It took
(01:46:23):
out an entire building. And you know then then of
course we go into with safety. You know what, what
were the fire prevention appliances that would have been in
place or should have been in place, And that led
(01:46:44):
and that led to finding these code violations of what
could have stopped this devastating explosion. And the main thing
that we we uncovered was the the automatic fire doors
in the partitioning the basement off were blocked open. And
(01:47:09):
what happened was is the fire door was designed to
operate with a fusible link. When the heat hit the
fusible link, it burned away, released the chain, and the
doors closed, isolating the fire. That compartment it becomes compartmentized.
So the fire door in the basement between the two
(01:47:29):
sections of the basement, there was a wooden ramp put
in blocking the doors, and there were wooden dows put
in the tracks of the doorway. Therefore, when they were
transferring items or stock from one section of the basement
to the other with the hand trucks, all they did
was go through the door and roll it over these
(01:47:50):
wooden ramps and they wouldn't have to worry about the
doors open and closing. So when the fire occurred, the
fusible links operated, but the doors never closed. So now
instead of having two compartmented areas, you now had one
giant compartment and simultaneous explosions from the from the the
(01:48:13):
gases in the flammable liquids as it heated up, you know,
as as as the paint can started to heat, you
could we actually saw the paint can lids popped from
the pressure that was in the paint cans, you know,
because you know, liquids expand when they heat it up.
So all of these things that were now starting to
(01:48:34):
pop and adding all these you know, these fumes caused
one giant, one giant explosion. It took the life of
three five fights. And you know, later on, you know,
you know, we talked about you know, dotting your eyes
and crossing your t's after we finished the cane, uh
(01:48:55):
the scenario. John John did a great job in closing
out the case. We all were in agreement on what
happened and how it occurred and everything else. And John
moved on, he retired and went down to down South
to where he lives now. When you know, unfortunately, civil
litigation now becomes part of it. And like we talked
(01:49:18):
about earlier about the Marshalls having not only a criminal
responsibility but also civil responsibility. I think I wound up
testifying in court civil court like seven years later or
eight years later, because the safety chief who was there
that day perished at nine to eleven, and so so
did his aid. Yeah, chief staff. So in order to
(01:49:42):
in order to get those photographs into evidence, somebody had
to testify to the fact that they were there when
those those those photographs were taken and directed it. And
that was me, and we were there. John was John
had moved to down South and couldn't come up, so
it went back to the assisting marshal who was me,
(01:50:05):
and along with testifying with about the hot water heater
and everything else. It was like seven or eight years
later that I had a wound up testifying in civil court.
So you can imagine sometimes I don't remember what I
had for lunch the day before, you know, having to
rely on your notes and the documentation and how you
(01:50:26):
put a case report together. And I had very good
instructors in the Marshals that said, your case report is everything,
because eventually there's no worse of a feeling than getting
your butt shewed out by a defense attorney on the
stand and not having the answers and being made a
fool of. So everything was extremely well documented by the
(01:50:47):
case offices, myself included, and the other investigators that were
there that you know, everybody had a piece, who did
an interview, who spoke with PSC and G who spoke
with Conne Edison who you know, and everybody had all
these pieces to put together and then to come back
eight years later and testify in a court of law
(01:51:09):
and be confident and not get chewed up by somebody
that's trying to say you were wrong. You know, it
goes along, it goes, It goes a long way in
a hot seat. So of course, and I know you're
in YPD. Cap of parts will tell you that sitting
up there and getting chewed out by a defense attorney
is not a fun place to be, you know. But
(01:51:30):
if you're confident in what you did and how you
did it and documented what you did, and that that
relies on your training.
Speaker 1 (01:51:39):
And mind, you to your point. This fire occurred in
June of two thousand and one. You didn't testify until
two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, And who
could have foreseen three months later. But as you mentioned,
excuse me, apologies for that. Chief Stack was there. He
gets killed in nine to eleven. His aid firefighter Bobby Crawford,
who I believe was his gets also gets killed in
(01:51:59):
nine to eleven. And ask those two gentlemen, sadly John
moves down south. You know, there could have been all
the circumstances for you to say at the time, not
knowing what was coming down the pike, and the chiefs guy,
he'll take care of it. Ah, you know, I'm not
even the main marshal, and you took care of it
because you just never know.
Speaker 3 (01:52:16):
And there you go it again. It goes to the brotherhood.
We weren't, you know, we eventually, I mean the assistant
chief I think Bob Burns was the assistant Chief I
Marshal at the time. He was an SIU supervisor at
the time. I believe he even came in to testify,
and he testified right after me. And you know, so
(01:52:37):
it's it's it's a group effort. It's it's not about
one guy or one person. It's it's you know, it's
a group of guys or a group of investigators putting
together a rock solid case and this and this was
and this was you know, a corporate issue, violations and
everything else. So can't bring him back what it can
(01:53:00):
make him right, you know, right, you know so.
Speaker 1 (01:53:04):
And again tactics, prevention methods come out of this.
Speaker 2 (01:53:07):
So it's not in vain.
Speaker 1 (01:53:09):
Much like Vinnie Fowler, we wish these three gentlemen were
still with us, but it's not in vain because there's
a lot that's come out since this fire happened. And again,
if you look at the pictures, it looks like a warzone.
You know, that whole building came straight down like a
bomb had taken it out. And at that time, you know, listen.
The two things that stick out to me is ABC
(01:53:29):
News did a great special line it almost right after,
I think a month later in July of two thousand
and one. Captain Faith he's in that ironically speaking about
the fire. Yeah well, no, Brian, or excuse me, Brian Hickey.
I meant to say, oh yeah, Nicky, I got the
nation of Captain Brian Hickey. Rather, I was speaking about
that fire. Unfortunately, he ends up losing his life on
(01:53:50):
nine to eleven. I'll never forget something Scott Pelly mentioned too,
on sixty minutes and twentieth anniversary of nine to eleven
talking about Chief Cancy, what you mentioned earlier and what
he did at that fire where he said, apparently Chief
Cancy did at the time. My firefighters are like my children.
That day I lost three. You know he lived it,
he lived it.
Speaker 2 (01:54:09):
He was there. I know Chief downed, he was there.
Commissioner Fihan was there.
Speaker 1 (01:54:12):
And three months later those men will respond to the
trade center and not make it before I get to
that day. Pat Pogan, who retired out of the NYPD
j TTF and was also formerly in the Emergency Service
Unit and also volunteer on Long Island, says Hi Don,
it was always good to see you on mutual aids
in Massapequa or us going to South Farmingdale.
Speaker 2 (01:54:29):
God blessed brother.
Speaker 3 (01:54:31):
Patty's a great guy. He's always got a smile, always
got a smile on his face. I enjoyed. I enjoyed
when I when I pulled up or I got into Massapeka,
he got over to me and I saw him. It
was it was always good to say him, always good
to say him. Guys you can trust guys, you can
trust guys, you can rely on guys that are smart. Yes, right,
(01:54:54):
it was a pleasure working with him.
Speaker 2 (01:54:56):
Yep, great cop, great firemen.
Speaker 1 (01:54:58):
Wore both hats and is true also like you did,
you had as you talked about on Salty, we'll talk
about it here in the morning of September eleventh, two
thousand and one, you had a very close call.
Speaker 2 (01:55:08):
I mean again, I go.
Speaker 1 (01:55:09):
Back to another quote in the Non Day Brothers documentary,
James Hanlin talks about it because there was a lot
of duty death the month before, a firefighter collapse of
a heart attack at a blaze, and he said, I
didn't think there was anything worse than us losing a
single firefighter. And I'm sure you thought after the Father's
Day blaze that there can't be anything worse in my
career than this. Then comes that morning. I'll let you
(01:55:30):
take it from there. Just tell me about your morning
from start to finishing. Getting down to the trade.
Speaker 3 (01:55:34):
Center again, just one of many that went in that day.
I just got into my queen's office. The first plane
had just struck the tower. My boss said, we're going.
We grabbed our stuff and out the door I went.
(01:55:54):
My partner was due to come in later that day,
Mike Mike Smith. He was due to come in later.
He had called me said pick me up on the
side of the Long Island Expressway. So I grabbed his stuff,
I threw it in the car and and off I went.
So we had already known that the first the first
(01:56:16):
plane hit the tower. I picked Mike up on the
side of the Long Island Expressway on the service road,
and we were on our way in. We were coming
around the Vanwick Expressway and I actually saw the second
plane hit the second tower. At that point we were
both convinced that, you know, something was not right, that
(01:56:38):
we were under attack. We get into Manhattan. We we
come through the Midtown Tunnel. We stop at the Midtown Tunnel.
We speak to two Tarborough Bridge and two offices that
were there. We told them, leave a tube open for
(01:56:59):
just fire apparatus. Nobody goes into tube. Just leave it open.
He said, it's already open fire service and emergency service only,
you know. So I put over the radio that we
have one tube in the Midtown Tunnel open, and we
fly straight through the tunnel up to the other side
and we head straight across town on fifty ninth Street,
(01:57:19):
bangle left and we're heading down. We're heading downtown. Pull
up park the car, Mike and I get out, We
grab our gear. We run into the fire department. Doctor
he says, where do we go? Where do we go?
I said, just come with us. We're going to the
command post. We wind up on West Street in front
(01:57:44):
of the hotel. That's the first spot that we wind
up at, and we're at like a meeting point. The
supervisor at the time was there with us, Randy Wilson,
who I affectionately know is now at this point is
wrong way, Randy, and I'll tell you the reason why.
(01:58:05):
So the Doctor's like, okay, where are we going? So
we were told to secure the main command post with
a Chief Gancy and Chief Fianoire. So we now start
to transverse across West Street into the towers, into the
area between the towers, and you know, as we're going through,
the events are unfolding as you can imagine on you know,
(01:58:26):
you have two planes, two towers burning. So we start
to hear these little explosions and I see right away
what these little explosions were. And then the FDNY and
medical doctor that was with us asked us. He said,
what are those explosions? I'm hearing, and I just looked
up at him and I said, Doc, those are the
(01:58:48):
bodies hitting the ground. And he just stopped and looked
at me. I said, I can't make this up. Those
are the bodies hitting the ground. And as we start
to transfers through, it was one, two three, and we
were now aware of what was going on that these
people that were trapped above the fire were now jumping
(01:59:12):
and landing on the ground and literally vaporizing in front
of us. And we get through the courtyard area between
the two buildings and I'm with my partner, Mike, I'm
with Randy Wilson, another supervising fire Marshall, Tommy Williams, and
(01:59:33):
we were told to go to the command post to
secure the command post because now we kind of realized
we had a terrorist a terrorist attack. Randy says to me,
all right, we gotta go right. All we gotta go left.
I said, no, Randy, we got to go right. The
command post is over by ten and ten. We got
to go right. Randy says, no, we got to go left.
(01:59:54):
I worked in Manhattan, I know where I am. I said, no, Randy,
we got to go right. Randy says, no, we got
to go left. I'm like, no, we gotta go right. Now,
we gotta go left. I'm like, all right, Randy, you're
the boss, you work in Manhattan. You will go left.
And we go to make a left, and we must
have went fifty yardds and the first tower collapsed right
(02:00:16):
down on to the command post where we would have been.
And although Randy was wrong, he wound up being right.
I would have been right, but would have round up
being wrong. And because the first the command post was
completely covered in that first collapse. As we went left,
(02:00:38):
there was a set of subway stairs in front of
me on the corner of Bessie Street. As the building
came down, my only area of refuge was into the
subway stairs. And I just dropped my stuff at the
top of the stairs and I dove down the basement
stairs to the subway. As you know, they come down
(02:01:01):
like this, you know, they have you know, one from
one direction, one from the other one. And I had
just landed at the bottom as the tower came down
on top of that subway stairs, and I got buried
at the bottom of that stairs, literally getting into that stairwell.
Because the way I was running, the people that were
(02:01:22):
on the stairs. It was so packed. I actually ran
past them, turned around, and then dove down the stairs
that were in front of me as the tower came
down on top of the subway the stairs effectively right
in front of the church there, and I got buried
at the bottom, not too bad, but I was able
(02:01:45):
to work my way out. We pulled there were I
you know, couldn't see there were people on the stairs.
We started pulling people into the subway station and we
just told them, keep going, keep going, keep going.
Speaker 5 (02:01:58):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:02:00):
I worked my way back up to the street. Now
it was pure devastation and chaos. I can't find Mike.
I can't find Randy, I can't find Tommy. I'm by myself.
Radio was gone, my gear was gone. I just had
dropped my gear at the top of the stairs. It
was buried. So I worked my way across the street.
(02:02:25):
And I'm standing on the corner of church in Vessi
and there's a New York City office building that's right
there on the corner contains the post office. And I'm
sitting there and I'm trying to get my wits about me,
and there's guys, you know, everybody is running and I'm
with a police department captain, and you know, we stopped
(02:02:47):
were at the corner of the building and we're talking
about what just occurred, and you know what happened, and
all of a sudden, we hear this eerie twisting sound.
It sounded like a freight train. And I look up
and as I look up, I see the top of
the second tower coming over, and now it starts to
(02:03:12):
rumble and it starts to collapse. And at that point
I start to run again. And my first area of
resfuge was the door to the post office or this
office building that was there. I dive through the office.
I dive through the doors of the revolving door of
the post office. As the building comes down in the
(02:03:34):
ground in front. I had just get to the other side,
and that revolving door that's spinning that you would normally
go through nice and slow, now is operating like a
blender and it's just spinning at a high rate of speed,
and all of a sudden, it just blows everything in
(02:03:57):
down on top of me, and it just, you know,
it covers me from the inside, and I get up.
I work my way to the basement of that building.
I waited a few minutes and then I came back
out again, pure devastation. I wind up getting to the street.
(02:04:20):
I wound up running into Steve Manziello, who was Chief
Gancy's aide, who Steve was a marshall at the time,
and Steve and I have a conversation and he's like,
I don't know what Chief Gancy is. I don't know
what Chief Gancy is. I said, I don't know where
the guys I was. You know, at that point where
(02:04:42):
maybe five minutes into the collapse of both you know,
five minutes after the second collapse. Now we're twenty minutes
or twenty five minutes after the first collapse, everything is
basically chaos. And we wound up, you know, I wound
up leaving Steve and finding you know, a couple other marshals,
(02:05:05):
you know, as I got closer to the fire scene,
and we just regrouped and we wound up down at
the pier and then, you know, we do what the
marshals do. We worked on the pile for a couple
of days. I worked on the pile for two days
and then the assistant Chief Time, Richie mcahey, called me
(02:05:26):
up and said, I need a favor. I need a
team at the morgue. But I need to get guys
at the morgue that I know can handle it, you know.
And he asked me if I would be part of
that team, and I said absolutely, again a team effort.
I wasn't the only one there. There was a dozen
(02:05:48):
guys at the regular morgue, and there was another dozen
guys at the temporary morgue. And I spent the next
three months in the medical Examiner's office doing all the
medical examine of work with. You know, anytime the remains
of a firefighter came in, whether it was a partial
(02:06:11):
part of a body or gear or anything remotely related
to a firefighter, the investigation relied on us to try
and identify who the individual was and to try and
get them released as soon as possible so the family
would be able to get some type of closure. And
(02:06:33):
and for three months that that's that's what I did.
After nine to eleven, I was dealing with those guys
and when they came in, and it was tough. Yeah,
you can imagine the condition that they were in and
and you know, personal property that had to be recovered
(02:06:57):
and and then cleaned and then given back to the family.
Wedding rings, gold chains, religious metals, wallets, all of that
stuff that had you know, especially after like the first
month sanitized, cleaned and returned to the family, and then
the you know, the funeral homes would kind of pick
(02:07:20):
up whatever they could so the families would have closure
for them. You know, we know what the funerals were like.
And the biggest thing was was DNA. Was you know,
getting DNA, and some of these guys weren't identified for
months and years later, you know, because we couldn't you know,
(02:07:44):
you know, it's it's it's it's horrific to say, but
you'd get a turnout coat with a nominate, and I
wish I could tell you who it was, you know,
I don't, you know, but we secured the turnout coat,
we said, you know, the helmet, we you know, a boot.
You know, a lot of guys that day borrowed gear
(02:08:04):
from firehouses. DNA was a very big part of it,
and not only collecting it from the scene and from
the remains that came into the morgue, but it was
the samples that came out of their lockers in the
form of hair brushes and toothbrushes and you know, to put.
(02:08:25):
The overall goal was to identify and return the individuals
so the family had closure, and unfortunately, fortunately some people
had closure, and unfortunately people still till today have not
had closure because nothing's been you know, recovered or identified.
(02:08:49):
And you know, working there for three months was was tough.
It took a toll on me. So now a day
goes by it, I don't think about it.
Speaker 2 (02:09:05):
I appreciate you going into it. I know it's not
easy to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (02:09:08):
And I'm not the only one. You know, there are
hundreds of guys that thousands of guys that were there,
I mean the entire Fight apartment at one point to
the other ten thousand strong. Everybody detime there. Everybody there
was and everybody had a different exposure. Some guys, you know,
found three, four or five people. Some guys, you know,
(02:09:31):
just removed contents. But we were all there for the
same reason as we all had a common goal, and
that was return our brothers to their families. And we
all worked extremely hard at it, and I think we
did a damn good job of it. And we fought hot,
and you know, and it's it's you know, it's a
(02:09:51):
hits history of the fight apartment. You know, yes, unfortunately,
the worst devastating loss of any fight apartment in the world.
And you know it happened right at out front door,
you know.
Speaker 1 (02:10:05):
And again I appreciate you going into it because I
know it couldn't have been easy to talk about.
Speaker 2 (02:10:10):
I mean, we mentioned Chief Stack earlier.
Speaker 1 (02:10:12):
I remember reading an article in the Daily News back
in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (02:10:15):
A blood bile for him was found fifteen years l
fifteen years later after him and his aid body Crawford,
have made the ultimate sacrifice.
Speaker 3 (02:10:24):
Right, yes, long time. And I'm hoping that DNA technology now,
you know, as technology gets better and computerization and AI
and all of that stuff, we're hoping that you know,
more remains that are that are down at the museum
and still with the medical examiner and the medical Examiner's custody.
(02:10:47):
We're hoping that more people would be able to be
identified and next family can get closure. You know, you know,
we all lost, we all lost extreme e really good
friends that day. You know, some closer than others. Acquaintances.
There are acquaintances. There are friends, and then there is family.
(02:11:10):
You know, you look at you look at brothers, you
look at father and son, you look at cousins. It
didn't know any bounds. It took everybody, and unfortunately for
some family suffered more than others based on multiple family members.
And then later on in life, those family members that
(02:11:32):
were down there succumb to secondary injuries or the secondary
diseases after losing family members down there, and you know,
it's just horrible, you know, but we got through it,
and we get through it, and every day is a
new day, and we think about we think about them,
(02:11:56):
and we honor them, and just like any fight apartment
in the world. And unfortunately it affected so many of
us because there were so many individuals that were lost,
and everybody had a touch with at least somebody that
was there that day.
Speaker 2 (02:12:14):
As you were driving down there were Randy, Ronnie Buka,
and James Devlin and Devlin that since we lost that
with a couple of years ago to nine eleven cancer,
Jimmy Devrie, Yeah, Jimmy Devert.
Speaker 3 (02:12:25):
Rather Jimmy I worked with Jimmy and the Bronx also.
Speaker 1 (02:12:29):
Yeah, and he was he was. I remember Devor talking
about it in a documentary. He was in the well.
Both him and Ronnie were in the South Tower and
Jimmy just happen to catch an elevator. The elevator just
opened up around the fiftieth floor. It may have been
to bring an injured woman down, Yes it was, yeah, yeah,
and Jimmy brings her down. Why the elevator worked in
that moment, As he said, he just he didn't know
(02:12:50):
what just happened to Roddy kept climbing up for Chief Palmer,
and you know, they made it the seventy eighth floor.
Speaker 2 (02:12:57):
And Ronie knew because Ronnie was there in ninety three.
Ronnie had done his homework so he knew what was
going on that day.
Speaker 3 (02:13:02):
Ronnie's expertise outside the FDNY was with the Intelligence Division
in his Army Reserve unit. And in ninety three and
after ninety three, he continued to work, and there's documentation
out there. You can read the books and everything else.
He knew. He knew that something else was going to
(02:13:25):
happen because there were things in play that weren't answered
after the first bombing, of course, and he knew, and
try to make you know, bring it to light and
everything else. And I don't know. Again, you need to
read those books on what Ronnie and his thoughts and
(02:13:46):
the people that worked extremely close with him that he
explained everything to, and he was spot on. He was
spot on.
Speaker 1 (02:13:54):
The book that's sitting on my shelf in front of
me right now that I read from cover to cover
A Thousand Years for Revenge by Peter Lance, where Rodnie
features prominently in that book. And unfortunately, despite the fact
that he had so much information, not just him.
Speaker 2 (02:14:09):
John O'Neill was another one.
Speaker 1 (02:14:10):
I think also of Detective Claude Richards from the bomb squad,
who maybe you cross passed with during those fireworks investigations.
All those gentlemen, in their own respective way, knew something
was going to happen again after nineteen ninety three. They
all went there again on September eleventh, two thousand and one,
John as a security director for the trade Center, Ronnie
as a fire marshall, Claude is a detective. Still, all
of them perished in a line of duty that day.
(02:14:32):
And it just goes to show, especially Roddy, they wouldn't
even let him in a JTTF with his macrom They.
Speaker 2 (02:14:38):
Just shut him out. And boy, would you love to
have a guy like that the JTTF today. With his knowledge, he.
Speaker 3 (02:14:43):
Was a book of knowledge man. He had it all.
He knew it. He knew it, you know. And Ronnie
was a real good guy. Ronnie and I were firearms
instructors together. I mean we would go off to Camp
Smith and spend weeks at Camp Smith. We do at
least two weeks in the spring, two weeks in the fall,
and then if there was a new Marshall's class, we
got another week with a new Marshall's class. So we
(02:15:05):
would spend four or five weeks together, you know, every
single year at the range. And you know, he was
just a wealth and knowledge and you know, and it.
Speaker 6 (02:15:17):
Was a shame it was, you know, and in such
physical good condition that he was with and the same
with Orio Pama that they made it up to the
fire floor, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:15:28):
Yep, yep, especially you know Oreo, Chief Palmer you're referring to.
Of course, ran marathons. Ronnie had suffered many for many
would have been a career ending injury that he worked
his way back from to be able to get back
to the rescue of actually went to the Marshalls. He
was the distabuished fireman. Two people forget he was in
rescue one for a long time. He really knew fire
(02:15:49):
duty and knew marshall duty as well, and I love
the obituary that was put out about him.
Speaker 2 (02:15:53):
Ron isms this.
Speaker 1 (02:15:55):
One's sharp basketball was the one that popped up in there.
So he had a sense of humor too. A couple
of things I want to hit on or this Mike
Caine mentioned it earlier before you retired two thousand and three.
Of course, the imposter case and once you get back
to the normal day to day flow of things after
the recovery efforts were completed in the spring of O two.
Speaker 2 (02:16:15):
This is an interesting one. So dive into a force.
Speaker 3 (02:16:18):
Okay, so fire marshals, we get involved in stuff other
than fires, yes, okay, if you can believe that, so
you know, but it goes well, you know, listen, it
goes into it goes into child welfare cases when you
see conditions like that that we get involved in, and
insurance fraud, which is sometimes can and cannot be violated.
(02:16:41):
But this one was kind of a curveball. I'm working.
I'm working New Year's Eve night. A complaint comes in
about a female who had given a deposit to a
fight appointment lieutenant for a car and she thinks that
(02:17:05):
she was defrauded by this fire department lieutenant. So of
course I'm working. I catch the case, and now this
becomes my investigation. So I interview this female and she says, well,
you know, I met this individual. He was, you know,
he's an army guy. He goes to you know, he
(02:17:26):
goes to the Army every other every other weekend, and
you know, I met him, and he's a fight apartment lieutenant.
And you know, he said that his father worked at
the police Department Pound and he could get us these
impounded cars for like thousands of you know, thousands of
dollars less than what they're worth, you know, like, you know,
a couple of thousand dollars, and you know, I gave
(02:17:48):
him a deposit, and my friend gave him a deposit,
and my other friend gave him a deposit, and you know,
now you know he's he's keeps telling us we're going
to get these cars. We're not going to get these cars.
I'm like, okay, let me start working on this. So
I start working on it, and the woman gives me
this guy's identity and I start to go through the
(02:18:08):
background and the checks, and after like two or three days,
I wind up you know, checking this guy out, and
he's like, I can't find it. There's no fire officer,
there's nobody in ems. There's nobody. And the woman is adamant.
She's like, well, he goes to the firehouse all the time.
I'm like, what do you mean he goes, Well, we're
(02:18:29):
in the car and he you know, he stops at
the firehouse and he goes in and he checks his
schedule and he comes out and he says, I gotta
work Thursday and Friday. He says, but I got to
go to the military reserves all the way upstate. Whatever
the fort is up there. Fort is in Camp Smith. No, no, no,
all the way upstate. I can't remember the name of it.
Speaker 2 (02:18:50):
Somebody put in the chap Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3 (02:18:52):
All the way upstate, and and I'm like, okay, so
maybe i'll run the you know. So I start looking
at things and I'm like, okay, I'm trying to put
pieces together. And I called a military I get military
police involved. We got a guy's name, no no military background,
(02:19:12):
she says, I'm telling you he's wearing a military uniform.
You know, he's wearing a fight apartment uniform. I'm like,
I can't fight for drum. That's it. So I'm like okay.
So I said, well, how did you meet this guy?
She says, well, I'm driving down the parkway and he's
basically flirting with me in the next car and traffic
(02:19:34):
and we pull over and I need him and he
seems like a nice guy, and you know, we started dating,
and you know, so it winds up. It winds up
that this guy, Maurice is his first name, was a
con man and he would portray himself in these various capacities.
(02:19:58):
Now I already know he portrayed himself as a military
personnel because he was wearing a military uniform. I also
know that he was wearing a fight apartment uniform. So
we start doing our background investigation and we find out
where he's living. We actually followed him to where he
was living, and we started doing some research and I
(02:20:21):
actually catch him coming out of the house one day
in a fight apartment uniform, and I'm like okay. So
a couple of days later, we're putting the pieces together.
I go back to the girlfriend. The girlfriend says, well,
he's coming to stay at my house over night and
(02:20:41):
then he's going to go to work the next day.
So I'm like, okay, So I go to a district
attorney's office in Queen's. Now I know he's wearing a
fight apartment uniform. I know he wears a military uniform.
She says, he has a gun. We know that he's
selling these cars to people that these cars don't exist.
(02:21:03):
We track him back to a house on Long Island
where he grew up. We talked to the neighbors out
there that said he's a flake. So now we're kind
of putting this scenario together. So I go home, and
of course, you know what do I do when I
get home. You know, I'm sitting at the kitchen table,
and I'm talking to my kids, who are teenagers at
(02:21:23):
the time, and I'm telling him about this guy that's
portraying himself as a cop and a fireman, a military guy.
And my daughter Cassandra, okay, who's probably listening right now,
she said, she said, Dad, that's like the guy from
the movie. I'm like, what guy, cass catch me if
(02:21:45):
you can. I'm like, you're right. So I go into
the office the next day. I get Bobby Burns, who's
the supervisor. I said, I got a name for the case.
He says what he said, catch me if you can.
He says, I love it. Let's run with it. So
we run a couple of more days. I get a
search warrant for the guy's house. We know he's going
(02:22:08):
to go stay with the girlfriend. We get him at
the girlfriend's house, We get him coming out. We get
a military uniform in the car along with a strong
box with a pellic gun, a BB gun. Okay, now
we get him back to Hoopah Street. We execute the
search warrant on the apartment, and when we get into
(02:22:28):
the apartment, we could not believe what we found. He
had fight apartment uniforms, EMS uniforms, he had military uniforms.
He had a professor'st GOB from Saint John's University. He
had credentials for the Railroad, the MTA. He had radios,
(02:22:52):
he had badges, he had vests, he had shirts. It
was amazing on the amount of people or the amount
of stuff that he had portraying other individuals. We found
the receipt book that he had. Now we start calling
people from the receipt book. We have a person in Virginia,
(02:23:15):
we have a person in Maryland, we have a person
in Pennsylvania. We have a girl badges we have, Mike said,
badges loaded with badges. We have a girl from Brooklyn.
And I said, okay, she's local. Let me call hert
I call this girl. She's hysterical on the phone because
I tell her what's going on. I'm like, why. She said,
(02:23:40):
I just picked up my wedding dress. I said, what
wedding dress? We're getting married next weekend? Oh no, I said, yo,
what she said, Not only are we getting married next weekend?
I just leased him a brand new car. So now
I got the one girlfriend. I got a second girlfriend
(02:24:01):
that just picked up her wedding dress, is getting married
next weekend. He leased the car. I got people in Maryland, Pennsylvania,
all the Virginia. You know, we're getting from the receipt
books that he had that he kept. He would give
them like like you know, like a dinery seat, you know,
one car one, you know, one Lincoln Continental one, you know.
(02:24:23):
And we started calling these people and we put this
whole thing together and it was basically who was he today.
What we did find out is he would put his
fight apartment uniform on ems and he would knock at
a fight apartment door and when the house watch would
open the door. He would say to the guy, can
(02:24:44):
I use the bathroom real quick? I'm on my way home. Yeah, sure, brother,
there's a bathroom on every apparatus flow. The guy would
let him in use the bathroom and he would leave.
He was in uniform. He would go out to the
car and tell the girl in the car, yep, I
just checked with my boss. I gotta work Thursday and Friday.
And you know, I just and we put this, We
(02:25:09):
put this whole scenario together, search warrant. Like I said,
the amount of items, it took us. It took us
almost fourteen hours to voucher all these radios. I mean,
it was amazing the stuff that he had. And then
it went, you know, and then like I said, it
made the news. And then we started getting phone calls
(02:25:32):
from all these other people that were defrauded from this,
from this imposter because they they felt comfortable dealing with
a fire officer or a firefighter or a military person.
And it was nothing but a big giant scam. So
he gets jail time. He goes into the drug diversion
(02:25:54):
program because he was a cocaine abuser.
Speaker 2 (02:25:58):
Oh what a surprise.
Speaker 3 (02:25:59):
Yeah, I retire he goes away. A year and a
half or two years later, I get a phone call
from SIU again, where's the Maurice folder? I said, it's
it's in there somewhere. Why, what's up. He's back at
it again. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me, Like, nope,
(02:26:20):
he's back at it again, portraying himself as a firefighter.
And and they wound up blocking him up again. So
now the Army CID didn't want to take the case
because even though he portrayed as a military personnel, there
was no involvement with military installations or you know, anything
(02:26:43):
credible other than saying that he was part of the military.
I mean full full military uniform, I mean BDU's, BDU's
you know, hats, emblems, you know, he looked like he
looked like a Mexican general, you know, with all the
medals that he had and stuff like that. So it
wasn't it was. It wasn't always fire related. This was
(02:27:05):
something that came out of it that was not fire related,
but fire associated. And and again it was it was.
It was. It was a great conclusion to my career
because I think that was my last arrest and then
catch me if you can. Was was my last arrest,
and then shortly there after I wound up retiring what.
Speaker 2 (02:27:28):
A way to go out?
Speaker 1 (02:27:29):
I remember something that Jerry or Box said, and as
of course the great Detective Lenny Briscolle and the original
on Dorder in his last episode, it's nice to go
out on a win.
Speaker 3 (02:27:38):
Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:27:42):
It plays into what I wanted to ask you next
to And we'll hit on this before we get into
the rapid fire too, a little bit of the private
sector two thousand and three. Of course you wrap it
up after this case. Were you thinking about it anyway?
Or I'll ask had it not been for nine to
eleven and until it took on you, when you have
kept going.
Speaker 3 (02:28:01):
I maybe would have kept going. I left. I left
the promotion on a table to supervising fire Marshal. I
was on the list. Although they can't tell you they
were going to make you, but I was close enough
to be reachable. Yeah. I had doing private stuff on
(02:28:22):
the outside, or not private stuff, but working hand in
hand with the insurance companies. The largest insurance company in
the United States had opened their books for investigators, where
they traditionally only hired their investigators from within their planes people.
But State Farm Insurance opened their books and was hiring
(02:28:44):
investigators from the outside for their special Investigations unit. I
got a phone call, which led to a meeting, which
led to an application. Uh, and I went for a
couple of interviews and they made me an all frequent
reviews come to work for State Farm Special Investigations logist
(02:29:09):
insurance company in the United States being investigated with them,
and just take your expertise and bring it in. And
you know, in fact, it was funny because it was
it was kind of odd for them to be hiring
people from the outside. They really never hide from the outside.
They always hide from within. And you know, when we
(02:29:32):
were negotiating, and it was with one of the regional managers.
You know, now we get to the point where okay,
you want to commit, you want to work for us
and everything else, and you bring all this expertise and
they said, you know. His answer to me was, well,
you know all this investigative stuff. He said, what do
you know about insurance. I'm like, oh, my car insurance
(02:29:54):
is about nine hundred dollars a year in my house,
you know, And he said, and that's why we need
to train you. He said, so, although you bring in
your investigative experience, you have zero insurance experience. So he
kind of humbled me to the point is I know,
you know, I know you're coming in mainly to do investigations,
(02:30:16):
but you really need to know the insurance angle. So
that shortly thereafter, it was claim school to become a
claim representative in locally in Uniondale, and then from claim
school it was to Bloomington, Ohio, Bloomington, Illinois, to the
corporate office for two weeks to learn how to be
(02:30:36):
a claim rep out there, and then it was back
for a couple of months, and then it was another
two weeks to go to SIU school back out to Bloomington. So,
you know, they taught me the insurance industry because I
knew nothing about it. And I spent nine years with
them until they downsized. And you know, I had a
(02:30:58):
great run. Know, I had a car, I worked from home.
I did my job in the field. You know, it
didn't make a difference for me if the case called
for getting up at four o'clock in the morning and
go and find in somebody, I did it, you know,
because I had a different mindset. Get the job done.
And that's the way I was trained and goes back
(02:31:20):
to my NYPD days. Get the job done. The guys
that trained me in the seven five and the squads,
and you know even in the marshalls, get the job done,
do what it takes to get the job done. And
I spent nine good years with them, and I culminated
with them after they downsized. They wouldn't take the I
wouldn't take the relocation program. My kids were still young,
(02:31:43):
and that was it. That was the end. So it was.
It was a good retirement. It was.
Speaker 1 (02:31:51):
It was I mean, twenty two years of civil service
between two great agencies, good, just about decade run of
the private sector. And I love how you put it
at the job done for over thirty years between both
sides of the coin public and private service. He did,
he did. I'm really glad we were able to chronicle
tonight and that brings us right into the rapid fire
five hit run questions for me, five hit run answers
(02:32:12):
from you. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't gonna leave
Billy Dennis in the lurch. He wanted me to ask
you about your first tour as a fire marshal, that's
the first question, the rapid fire.
Speaker 3 (02:32:20):
Well, the statute of limitations has expired.
Speaker 2 (02:32:23):
Okay, begins that way.
Speaker 3 (02:32:27):
My first door, my first tour was with Billy Bingo.
Here I am a brand new fire marshal. I had
just come from you know, I had fresh you know,
I had my police experience and the oversight and the
and the oversight of the police department and how integrity
conscious they were. Then the firehouse, operating with a boss,
(02:32:52):
you know, constantly, the boss is always with you. My
first door as a fire marshal was a night torn Queen's.
Billy Dennis Bingo was my senior partner for the night,
my first tour, and he said, Okay, get the radio,
get the car keys, and let's go. I'm like, where
(02:33:13):
are we going? He says, I gotta go out, and
I'm assigned to Queens. And the next thing I know
is I am Manhattan at a club. So Billy can
go talk to a couple of friends at this club
in Manhattan, and I'm like, I'm going to get fired tonight.
(02:33:37):
I'm like, and he's like, I don't worry about this.
And Billy, you know a great reporence. Billy as great
reputation as a fire fighter, a comedian, and a clown,
which we know he's a professional comedian. Yes, he just
had a different outlook on life. And here I was
at lebarb Bat in Midtown Manhattan with Billy Den this
(02:34:00):
my first night tour, and I'm like, I'll never do
this again. That's it. I said, we're going back. I said,
let's go. You know, he met his people, he met
you know, he talked to somebody, and you know, he
had to get some stuff squyed away, and and we
were gone. I said, you can try to get me fired.
I'm still on probation. I just you know, lebob Bat,
Midtown Manhattan, my first night. I'm like, yeah, thanks Bell.
Speaker 1 (02:34:26):
The keyword here being for the sake of protecting the
guilty and the innocent, but also the guilty allegedly.
Speaker 3 (02:34:30):
Allegedly allegedly the statute of limitations has expired. So therefore,
But and again I had worked with Billy a lot
after that, and again another guy, a senior guy that
that was able to show me the ropes, you know,
different different perspective, different outlook on different things.
Speaker 2 (02:34:49):
Of course, he was not getting salted.
Speaker 1 (02:34:50):
A while ago, Billy if you're still watching my emails
in the description of this episode on YouTube, uh, pluck
it away and send me a timeline of your career
because I'd like to have you on this shows.
Speaker 3 (02:35:00):
Well.
Speaker 1 (02:35:00):
Uh, second question the rapid fire besides Billy funniest colleagues
that you had across the board in the fire, so
you can mention the PD two.
Speaker 3 (02:35:09):
Uh p D. I had to go back to the
seven five robbery squad that it was in. Timmy Kelly
Marine Corps Sergeant senior senior police officer a lot of
time in the seven five just an all out comedian.
Really every time, you know, we were signed a robbery
apprehension team, and every time Timmy Kelly and I would
(02:35:30):
go out to try and apprehend the guy that was
wanted for a robbery. It was funny because we took
a bet before we go went went in through the door,
was he going to be under the bed or in
the closet, because you know, it was it was it
was like clockwork, Mike, when I tell you, every time
we rushed an apartment, the guy was either in a
closet or under the bed. It just it was. It
(02:35:53):
was just that funny. And and till his day until
his day. He sends me messages every every now and then.
You know, was he in the closet or under the bed,
you know, but he was an all our comedian. There
was no you know, you know, living as the Master
Gunnery Sgeant in the Marine Corps, he had a different
way of looking at things. And it was just a funny,
(02:36:16):
funny guy, Billy Dennis, funny guy. And in the Marshalls
and then one seventy five truck a gentleman, true gentleman,
Gary Velia. I wound up being a lieutenant. Gary was
just a cut up. I mean he would just make
me laugh. They just you know, he would you know,
(02:36:37):
he would just make me laugh. He would just he
just had to write outlook on life. You know, nothing
bothered him and you know, really really funny guy.
Speaker 1 (02:36:46):
Get to be unflappable. The other questions, Billy replaced one
of them. I mean you mentioned the case earlier with
the Douglaston Arson investigation, which was had an uplifting outcome.
But besides that, from your time on the line or
again timing the PD, what's a really uplift thing call
you had where you're like, man, I'm really glad that
turned out the way it did well.
Speaker 3 (02:37:05):
We again, we had the one case. We had the
one case with Douglaston. I mean that was that was
pretty pretty much. Yet I guess you know there was
there was a lot of good cases and I can't
put my finger on one right now that that would
stand out above the rest.
Speaker 1 (02:37:23):
Could be a fire where you say, when you made
a grab or you save some money's property.
Speaker 3 (02:37:26):
Can No, no, never, never, never did that. You know,
did that in the volleys as as a young guy
and made a grab in the volley's but you know
that guy, you know again uplifting but you know it
wasn't on the job at the time. I was a
cop at the time. But in the PD, I mean
just the satisfaction, just the fat satisfaction of closing the
(02:37:49):
investigation with a successful conclusion, knowing that you made a difference,
and you know, from the littlest thing to the biggest thing,
whether you know, it was just you got the job
done and you looked for help, you got help from
the guys and you got it done. So they really
(02:38:09):
you know, like I said, my my thing was the
Douglaston thing. That was by far my best because I
know I made a difference, and you know we successfully
brought that to a conclusion.
Speaker 2 (02:38:22):
That was the case. It was a very good case.
That's the highlight of this show.
Speaker 1 (02:38:25):
When you see the highlights of tomorrow, which i'm tagging
in my friend, that's the case I'm tagging. That's the
thing I'm specifically clipping amongst a lot because if you
make it difficult for me to pick a show highlight,
that means it was a really good show. But I
think that one, given the outcome, stands out slightly above
the rest.
Speaker 2 (02:38:40):
So here's the other thing. Not midtown Manhattan clubs, but
when you wanted to.
Speaker 1 (02:38:44):
Get something to eat, either after a long day at
the firehouse, a long day in the sector Carter's, a
long day investigating cases in the Marshall's office back then,
where was Don more metal going?
Speaker 3 (02:38:54):
Okay, a few places because Don Waldman don't like to eat.
Speaker 2 (02:38:58):
That was Mike Loan.
Speaker 3 (02:39:00):
So we had lunch. We had Mamas in Corona, a
staple for everybody that worked at Mama's h You always
got the special with mushrooms and mushrooms and peppers. We
had the Luna on Mulberry Street in Midtown Manhattan was
a little Italian place. It was a hole in the wall,
(02:39:22):
but made the greatest food heroes was Astoria h South
Christ and Charlie's. Uh. In the Bronx, it was Frankie
and Johnny's. Uh. You know, you go to Frankie and Johnny's,
you get a baseball bat size hero for like six bucks.
You know, you would you would serve you three meals.
So the flexibility, uh flexibility with the Marshalls was you
(02:39:48):
had a car, you had a radio, you remained available
and as long as you did your job and you
didn't you know, you didn't get jammed up and do
something stupid. The city was yours, you know. And you
know even now the commands that are in the Marshall's
office now you know they they transverse two and three boroughs.
And the flexibility was there and as long as you,
(02:40:10):
you know, you did your job and you know, I
like to eat. I mean it was. There was some
great places, you know, you know, used to go to
Howard Beach, you go to you know, used to go
get clams in Howard Beach, jumping the car, go down
a Cross Bay Boulevard and go to Lenny's. You know,
Lenny's clambought. Where do you want? You know that that
was the biggest thing. Where are we going for lunch?
(02:40:31):
Where we're going for dinner?
Speaker 1 (02:40:32):
The guys in the chat are putting warhops in there too.
I've heard warhops mentioned several times in the show Guy.
Speaker 3 (02:40:38):
Like seventeen in the basement, seven seventeen seventeen, Mott in
the basement. That couldn't go on the first floor at warhop,
you got to go to the basement.
Speaker 2 (02:40:47):
So yeah, I think he's still there right well, still
in existence.
Speaker 3 (02:40:51):
I don't know, Mike, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:40:52):
I hope it is. I hope, I hope it is.
And that's your point.
Speaker 1 (02:40:55):
Earlier, Billy says, we used to use a lot of
Dodd's connections because he was a police officer.
Speaker 2 (02:41:00):
We didn't have GPS in our cards again allegedly, all.
Speaker 3 (02:41:06):
Right, that brings us to the last and again using
the connections. It's it's networking, you know when when you know,
when you go to the Marshalls and you go to
you know you're an NYPD and you know it's the
people that you work with and you network with. I
always had a I always had a book with business
cards in it, and I kept that book up to
(02:41:29):
date with the individual who I dealt with, and on
the back of those business cards, I put how I
was involved with that person, if it was a case,
if it was a you know. And then when I
needed to network with connections, I would go to that
business card and call that individual and say, hey, you
remember me. I was the guy that blah blah blah.
(02:41:50):
And that opened the door, especially when I got into
the private sector, because you're in the private sector and
now you're dealing with these law enforcement agencies. My my
business card book was invaluable because I had all those years.
I had twenty years of working with people from all
throughout the city, and they all have their individual expertise.
(02:42:11):
Whether it was an auto crime guy, whether it was
an autoin and explosion guy, was it a bomb squad guy,
was it a you know? Was it a was it
a detective squad which you needed information from a detective squad?
The book was invaluable. No, Yeah, connections. Connections is the
way things get done.
Speaker 2 (02:42:32):
It's simple.
Speaker 1 (02:42:33):
Use it if you got it, if you've got the resources,
and use them. They're they're not there to collect dust.
You got to put them to use if.
Speaker 2 (02:42:39):
I get how whatever, by any means necessary.
Speaker 1 (02:42:41):
If it helps you, it helps you. The last question
the rapid fire. Like I said, you wore both hats.
So if someone's coming on the job now anywhere, but
we'll use New York City since obviously that's where you
spent your career, either as a new police officer or
as a new firefighter, or they just got promoted into
the Marshall's office, what advice would you give them as
someone that was pretty well versed as public safety career.
Speaker 3 (02:43:04):
You've got to be happy with the job you're doing.
If you're not happy with the job you're doing, you
need to move on to something that you want to do.
Get into the books, okay, supervisory roles on people that
enjoy their jobs. It's extremely important. Get in the books.
Study and listen when you get there to wherever you are,
(02:43:27):
whether it's a fire company, whether it's a precinct, whether
it's a specialized unit, look and listen and watch and follow,
keep your mouth closed and watch what goes on. That's
how I learned. I learned right from the very beginning,
right in the seven five those guys. Terry Murnaine was
a senior guy in the seven five Terry was an
(02:43:48):
excellent investigator, went on to the Brooklyn North homicide squad.
Very shop individual. Learn by what they do. You don't
have to, you know, if you don't want to ask
questions or whatever, but just watch how how they do
it in the fire service. Watch how a guy turns
the window. Watch how a guy goes, you know, and
puts a ladder up. Study to be a boss. Make
(02:44:09):
the best out of your career, because it's all about
the end game. You may be doing the job now,
but remember in twenty years when you're old and decrepit
and fat, and you know, it's all about the endgame. Okay.
You need to be comfortable at the endgame to either
move on or to retire comfortably. And that's why I say,
(02:44:30):
get in the books, if you can be a good
supervisor and you can get that extra money in your
pension at the end, it's all about the endgame.
Speaker 2 (02:44:39):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (02:44:39):
And I'll never forget something Bob Gallion told me on
this show a while ago, and this is this quote
has especially stuck with me as I'm trying to embark
on my own public safety career, which is you leave
with two things when you retire, no matter where you retire,
from PD or FD, your pension, you mentioned it, your reputation.
Speaker 3 (02:44:56):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (02:44:58):
If they're both in good stand.
Speaker 3 (02:45:00):
You do something right, do the right thing exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:45:04):
Do the right thing, and you sure did a lot
of it. My friend, this was a great show. Stick around.
We'll talk off the year before I say goodbye to
the audience. As always, for any guests in the show,
if they got shout outs to floors, you're my friend.
Speaker 3 (02:45:17):
My family was probably watching the guys I worked with,
you know, like I said, a great career seven five,
the n Y p D, the Marshall's office, Mike, your
your show, your show transversus the city agencies, which is phenomenal.
It's it's you got some heavy hitters coming on and
some you know, some have been there. I really enjoy it.
(02:45:40):
But to all those guys, I mean, this is this is,
this is what it's all about. And I and I
go back to when I when I and I told
you earlier, when I when I talked about nine to eleven,
and I give these sometimes I get the opportunity to
give these little discussions. I always start with the yes.
(02:46:00):
Rudyard Kipling famous off of poet. If history was taught
in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.
And your show allowing us on the show to tell
these stories, it's what makes the job great because the
guys will never be forgotten.
Speaker 2 (02:46:20):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (02:46:21):
That truly means a lot, and it's really you guys
who I do it for. You know, you guys make
the show and I appreciate the support. And it's never
lost on me how lucky I am. So anytime the
first responder shares that with me, you know, I really
do appreciate that, my friends. So you're saying that means
a whole hell of a lot, So thank you very
much to you. Like I said, stick around, we'll talk
off the air. Thanks to all of you and the
(02:46:41):
audience who tuned in tonight and those of you who
will listening to this later. You know, again, I'm very appreciative.
Paul Masoh sorry we didn't get to the pictures, but
Dottie does know that I had.
Speaker 2 (02:46:51):
Him in the cube ready to go.
Speaker 1 (02:46:52):
So you know, we've told a lot of stories tonight,
but they were loaded and they were receiving by friend. Again,
so thanks to everybody for tuning in coming up next
to the Mike new Even podcast. Two more FD and
Y shows were continuing to really delve back into the
fd interviews. Really looking forward to both of these, so
coming up first this Monday, he finished his career as
the Chief of Department for the FD and Y. He
(02:47:14):
did thirty eight years in total, started in nineteen eighty
five and then of course finished up a couple of
years ago in twenty twenty three. And that is a
former FDNY Chief of Department, John Sudnick, who I'm looking
forward to hearing from for volume sixty nine of the
Best of the Bravest and for volume seventy next week again.
Works in New York City EMS pre merger, which was
No Day at the Beach back then came over with
the merger of nineteen ninety six that worked on the
(02:47:35):
FT and Y side. One of New York City's most
senior paramedics. He retired as such in two thousand and five.
Mark Peck, I know a lot of you and the
audience are looking forward to that one, and those two
shows back to back should be great. Monday and Friday,
six pm, respectively. Please continue to keep the families affected
by Monday's tragedy and your prayers, especially that the family
had detected Islam posthumously promoted and on behalf of retired
(02:47:58):
fd and Y Fire Marshal Don Mormino. Actually before I
say that for those you almost forgot, for those of
you listening on the audio side for tonight's outro song
from their breakthrough nineteen ninety four album Throwing Copper, It's live,
coming your way with I alone now on behalf of
retired FDNY Fire Marshall Dot Mormino, I am Mi Colone
and we will see you next time.
Speaker 2 (02:48:16):
Take everyone, have a great rest of your weekend.
Speaker 5 (02:48:19):
I see you not to be what measure these things
by you great I sank in two week the low
church by agree to you here say your.
Speaker 3 (02:48:45):
You lead them.
Speaker 2 (02:48:46):
Your boat is it's see you anchor is out.
Speaker 3 (02:48:52):
You've been swept to.
Speaker 5 (02:48:56):
The greatest stuff, teaches Lotta as a.
Speaker 4 (02:48:59):
Tea to leave you there by yourself change all alone
tells you all around your burnt alone all tell you all.
Speaker 5 (02:49:28):
Use your mom to be great version of these things
by your high.
Speaker 2 (02:49:39):
Belong to be here by this yourself.
Speaker 5 (02:49:44):
Belong in literature, by by crea to the began space.
Speaker 4 (02:49:55):
Leave you there by yourself change. I don't know to
tell you there's not I don't tell you I love you.
(02:50:43):
Oh no, get that too fat.
Speaker 2 (02:50:46):
We love to see bos the.
Speaker 4 (02:50:51):
Running yournal that.
Speaker 5 (02:50:56):
I'm just saying those.
Speaker 4 (02:50:58):
Now, after after count tails a cow, after bow Tell
(02:51:19):
about the house let the house
Speaker 3 (02:52:00):
In