Outraged.

[oygevalte]

http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-bad-ticket,0,7373034.story

I'm speechless. And so angry I could pound holes in the walls.

I've filed a complaint with the NY State Police. Please do the same.

Comments

[ashleysmooshie]

I have no idea what inspires people to do things like that. Don't the police officers realize that it is going to be really bad publicity???

We supposedly have problems with that (two interstates in my city), but I've never seen anything like this.

[dwarven_brewer]

As crude as it might sound. The story is from Long Island.. the cops there don't really care.

[mamagotcha]

I have a family member who is close to the gentleman who received the ticket. I emailed her, and this is the response: "As always there is more to the story. This is the dept (her son) volunteers with. I believe there were some words that might have heated the situation."

[oygevalte]

Oh, I figured it was a power struggle of some kind. That came through between the lines. But as one 20-year EMS provider said in comments on the video's page, it's FD's command on scene, and police are there to assist the FD. Violating the hierarchy of the Incident Command System can get your department a rebuke from the FEDERAL government. And I hope that the NY State Police get one for this. No matter if the cop felt insulted because someone else was in command and handling traffic control, that's no excuse for what was done. Even if names were called, they're supposed to be professionals, not "tit for tat"ters. It's truly unprofessional, unbecoming, and insulting behavior regardless of the situation specifics.

[elainetyger]

I didn't know you followed this community

[oygevalte]

Where does it say the chief was not on duty? He responded in his department-issued vehicle, which is typically how fire chiefs respond in NY, in my experience.

Whether police typically handle scene safety or not, the FD should have been incident command, and ultimately IC makes decisions that cannot be overruled by subordinate unit commanders. What I don't know is whether any other FD personnel were on scene, since it is possible that in handling treating the victim he ceded his role as IC. If, OTOH, he was evaluating the pt as the sole responding fire/EMS person, to be handled by triage and EMS when they arrived on scene, he was still acting within his role as Incident Commander.

This is basic stuff from the FEMA Incident Command courses, which any supervisory police, fire and EMS personnel, as well as most subordinate/support personnel, are usually required to study and pass.