Fire Officials Admit Procedural Lapse in Putting New Radios Into Service

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April 11, 2001
Fire Officials Admit Procedural Lapse in Putting New Radios Into
Service
By KEVIN FLYNN

Fire officials acknowledged at a City Council hearing yesterday that
they had failed to follow a safety protocol developed after the deaths
of two firefighters when they decided to buy $15 million worth of new
hand-held radios that later had to be withdrawn from service.

The protocol directs the Fire Department to test new safety equipment
fully and to consult the department unions before putting it into
service. The system was developed by the Department of Investigation
in 1980 after two firefighters died when a new type of safety rope
snapped at a Manhattan fire.

City Council investigators found that the department's mistakes in
putting new two-way radios into service last month very much resembled
those from the 1980 incident. In a 19-page report released at the
hearing, they faulted the department for failing to test the equipment
properly, giving out misleading information about the purchase and
conducting an inadequate follow-up investigation.

The radios were taken out of service last month after a distress call
from a firefighter trapped in a burning house went unheard by some of
his colleagues. He escaped.

Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen told the Council members that the
core problem with the new radios was the department's failure to train
firefighters properly about the characteristics of the new digital
technology, which can include echoing and transmission delays. ''We
don't have any problems with Motorola's product,'' he said. ''It was
how we introduced it to the field.''

But under questioning by Council Speaker Peter F. Vallone, Mr. Von
Essen acknowledged that the department should have followed the
protocol and scheduled a field-testing of the radios. He noted that
none of the hand-held radios used by the department for the last 35
years had ever been fully field-tested either. ''This was treated like
that,'' he said, ''and I don't think it should have been.''

Mr. Von Essen characterized the mistake as an isolated oversight by an
executive staff that has a long track record of putting the safety of
firefighters first. He specifically cited his assistant commissioner
for communications, Stephen Gregory. ''Do you really think
Commissioner Gregory, who has three sons on the job, would knowingly
jeopardize their safety?'' he asked.

But union officials testified that there was ample evidence of gross
negligence. Peter Gorman, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers
Association, said the department had ignored complaints from six
officers months ago that the radios were not working properly during
Fire Academy training sessions.

Instead of interviewing those officers, fire officials chose to
investigate the firefighter who made the distress call last month, he
said. And as part of that inquiry, he added, an investigator went to
the home of the firefighter's former captain at 7 a.m. to notify him
of forthcoming questioning. Usually witnesses are sent notices at the
firehouse, according to Mr. Gorman, who characterized the visit as a
form of intimidation.

Mr. Von Essen spent much of his day rebutting the accusations. He said
no one had reported serious safety concerns before March 19, when the
distress call went unheard. He said the department's investigation was
intended to determine what had gone wrong at that fire, not to harass
the firefighter. And his staff said investigators had previously gone
to the homes of fire personnel to serve them with notices to appear at
a hearing.

''This investigator simply lived near the captain, so he served him on
his way to work,'' said Francis X. Gribbon, a department spokesman.

Mr. Von Essen told the Council members that much of the furor over the
radios stemmed from distortions that had been spread by the fire
unions as part of a vendetta against him. But the Council report said
much of the misinformation had come from the Fire Department. The
department, the report said, initially underreported the cost of the
radios and overstated the number of other cities using them. The
agency also wrongly asserted that a training video given to
firefighters had instructed them in the potentially disorienting
features of digital technology, the report said.

And the report suggested that the department's internal investigation
into the radios was misguided. ''It has been 20 days since the
F.D.N.Y. commissioner's decision to recall the XTS3500R digital
radios,'' the report said, ''and the F.D.N.Y. has yet to interview key
witnesses or release any results of its reported investigation.''

Investigators from the Department of Investigation attended
yesterday's hearing, but declined to comment on whether they had begun
their own inquiry into the matter.