NEW YORK — Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed a bill Monday that would have added a firefighter killed in 2006 to the New York firefighters memorial.
Volunteer Firefighter Paul Brady was working on top of a fire truck when a fellow firefighter drove it out of the Malverne firehouse without realizing he was there, according to the Malverne-West Hempstead Patch.
The memorial’s selection committee has voted four times not to nominate Firefighter Brady for inclusion because of criteria defining line-of-duty deaths as related to emergency incidents or training and not simply a tragic death.
“Tragedy is enough,” Executive Director of the New York State Association of Fire Chiefs Tom LaBelle, a FireRescue1 columnist told the Malverne-West Hempstead Patch. “If it’s in the line of duty of serving your community, the name should go on the wall.”
The New York Workers’ Compensation Board, the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation previously determined the death to be in the line of duty.
“I am sympathetic to the families and colleagues of every firefighter who has died in circumstances that do not make that firefighter eligible for inclusion on the State Memorial Wall,” Gov. Cuomo said in a memo. “And this was a very difficult decision, but there should not be one set of eligibility criteria for volunteer firefighters and another for paid firefighters.”
State Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg wanted to put Firefighter Brady’s name on the memorial and so backed a bill that would have overridden the selection committee’s decision.
“What we want is justice and to give a family the relief and honor they’re entitled to by having this man’s name on the wall,” he said. “Everywhere else he’s accepted as dying in the line of duty. Why should he not be on the wall in New York State?”