Why does New York City Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta still have a job?
During his Deutsche Bank press conference yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg repeatedly stressed the need for FDNY accountability – and even announced the reassignment of three veteran fire officers pending further investigation.
But Scoppetta – ex officio the man responsible for the deaths of two firefighters in the Aug. 18 bank-building blaze – keeps his job.
Unbelievable.
Yes, Bloomberg announced the reassignment of the three officers, including Division Commander Richard Fuerch, only hours after The Post reported that Fuerch had ignored a detailed 2005 memo calling for the establishment of a firefighting plan for the Deutsche Bank building.
If the advice in that memo – and apparently two others like it – had been followed, firefighters Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia might be alive today.
Written by then-Battalion Chief William Siegel, the memo called for:
* “Weekly surveillance” of the building – in addition to the department’s mandatory 15-day inspections for buildings under demolition.
* Regular updates on interior conditions, like the status of its standpipe system and stairwells. (Standpipes bring water to fight upper-floor fires, and clear stairwells are needed for rapid evacuation in a fire-fighting emergency.)
* Adoption of protocols to ensure that up-to-date information would be relayed to firefighters responding to an emergency at the building.
In the event, firefighters arrived at the building unaware that its stairwells had been boarded up and that its standpipe system had been partly dismantled.
They ended up trapped on the 14th floor. Only sheer luck and extraordinary skill prevented more fatalities.
Obviously, those who ignored calls for a “pre-fire plan” and “weekly surveillance” needed to go.
No doubt others in the FDNY chain of command are going to join Fuerch on the sidelines; that’s as it must be.
And ongoing probes by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo must determine precisely who was responsible for the conditions inside the building.
All that in due course.
There is no need to hesitate as far as Scoppetta is concerned, however.
Ranking officials answering to him failed to execute a very fundamental duty: They failed to design a firefighting plan for the Deutsche Bank building.
Tragedy ensued.
Now it is time for Scoppetta to assume personal responsibility for that failing.
He needs to resign.
And if he fails to resign, Bloomberg needs to show him the door.
With the dignity befitting Scoppetta’s many years of distinguished service to the city, yes. But with firmness, too.
One can’t expect accountability from the ranks if one does not demand it from the commissioner.
Nicholas Scoppetta has lost the confidence of the men he is meant to lead – and thus he no longer has a credible claim on the office he holds.