The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The city’s fire chief has dismissed the lead emergency worker in the botched response to the beating death of a veteran New York Times reporter, overruling a review board’s recommendations.
District of Columbia Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin also more than doubled the suspension of a second emergency worker.
“It is my sincere hope that justice has been served,” Rubin said Monday, saying the review board’s decision was “simply too lenient.”
David Rosenbaum, 63, was beaten with a pipe during a mugging near his home in January 2006, just days after the longtime reporter in the Times’ Washington bureau had retired.
Emergency workers initially believed Rosenbaum was drunk and didn’t try to determine whether he was injured, a city report found. An ambulance driver bypassed the closest hospital and took him to Howard University Hospital, nearly two miles out of the way.
The Fire Trial Board recommended that the lead emergency worker be suspended for 252 duty hours. The second worker was to receive an 84 duty-hour suspension, but Rubin increased that to 192 hours. The employees’ names have not been released.
The president of the D.C. Firefighters Association, Lt. Dan Dugan, called the chief’s action “purely political” and said he will file a grievance with the city’s labor-relations board.
The Rosenbaum family declined to comment. In March, the family dropped a lawsuit in return for the city taking steps to improve emergency services. If improvement isn’t made, the lawsuit could be refiled.
Two men were were convicted of murder and sentenced to long prison terms in Rosenbaum’s death.