Saturday, July 12, 2003

Can't We all Just Get Along?

I don't even know what to say about this. It seems like a health and safety problem, but I've never seen a fact sheet for it.
For longer than anyone cares to remember, unseemly jurisdictional disputes between some New York City police officers and firefighters have led occasionally to angry words at rescue and recovery operations, sometimes to scuffling between the uniformed forces and even to arrests and charges of interference.

Just two weeks ago, a firefighter involved in efforts to extricate a burglar trapped in a chimney in Queens said he was thrown down, handcuffed and arrested by a police officer for obstructing a crime scene.

And on Wednesday night, the simmering tensions - often referred to as the Battle of the Badges - boiled over again, this time at the scene of a man's drowning in Newtown Creek on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, where fire and police scuba teams went into the water to search for the victim.
Maybe an organizational counselor or something?