By Fran Spielman
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — The owner of an abandoned laundry where two Chicago firefighters died a year ago was charged Wednesday with criminal contempt for allegedly ignoring a court order to secure the building and repair a roof that collapsed during the fatal fire.
On Dec. 22, 2010, firefighters Corey Ankum, 34, and Edward Stringer, 47, were killed — and 15 other firefighters injured — when the truss roof collapsed at a vacant and unsecured commercial building at 1744 E. 75th St. that had become a winter refuge for homeless residents suspected of starting the fire to stay warm.
In a measure rarely used, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez argued that a criminal sanction and unspecified jail time is “required and appropriate” for building owner Chuck Dai of South Holland because of the deadly consequences of his alleged failure to correct 14 building code violations dating back to 2007.
“He had a responsibility to continue to make all the improvements that he was ordered by the court to make. If the boards didn’t work, then he needed to brick up that building. But, he didn’t go there. He didn’t do what he was supposed to do. He totally disregarded the order,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez said she is equally determined to send a message to owners of an estimated 1,500 “open and unsecured commercial structures” in Chicago on any given day.
“They have legal as well as civic responsibility to maintain their property in a safe and responsible fashion... They will not be permitted to disregard orders that are entered against them by the courts,” she said.
Dai could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Gene Murphy, accused the state’s attorney of “looking for a fall guy” for a “horrible tragedy” that is not his client’s fault.
“There is no existing report that connects the condition of the building to the terrible tragedy that killed the two firefighters. The roof collapsed as a result of the fire — not as a result of structural defects,” Murphy said.
In 2007, as Dai faced foreclosure and struggled to pay off a loan on the building, city inspectors cited the abandoned laundry for 14 building code violations, including “roof trusses that were rotted, had holes and were leaking.”
Two years later, in an apparent attempt to reduce the fines, Dai agreed to make all the necessary repairs and to secure the building from homeless people seeking refuge there, records show.
Dai’s attorney argued that after that, the city dropped the ball.
“There was no subsequent inspection of the premises after the 2009 court order,” Murphy said. “They have no evidence that my client willfully violated the court order. There are no reports subsequent to the 2009 entering of the court order that show my client did or didn’t do anything.”
Tom Ryan, president of the Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2, applauded the state’s attorney for throwing the book at the building owner.
“If you are warned repeatedly about dangerous conditions in a property you own and you fail to do anything about it, it does rise to the level of criminality because you can see what happened as a result. We lost two firefighters,” the union president said.
“Maybe other delinquent property owners will take notice and start making repairs ordered on their properties to make them safe. There’s a proliferation of them throughout the city. They make it very dangerous — not only for citizens, but also for firefighters and paramedics who respond to emergencies in those buildings.”
Carolyn Daley Scott is an attorney representing Demeka Wade-Ankum, the dead firefighter’s widow who has filed her own wrongful death lawsuit against Dai. If Dai was having problems securing the building, he could have demolished it, said Daley Scott, who is also a niece of former Mayor Richard M. Daley.
“He had other options he could have explored and he clearly chose to do absolutely nothing with this property,” she said.
As for the widow, “Coming up on the one-year anniversary of the death and headed into the holidays without her husband and the father of her children, it is quite difficult for her,” Daley Scott said. “But, she is pleased the state’s attorney’s office is pursuing this action against Mr. Dai.”
Last fall, a federal report blamed a shortage of radios, in part, for the death of the two firefighters. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health noted that only five of the 13 firefighters inside the laundry at the time of the roof collapse were carrying radios and that only one of those five firefighters reported having used the radio to issue a mayday call.
Fire Commissioner Robert Hoff responded by defending his decision to delay the switch to 5,000 digital radios — five years after the Motorola radios were purchased under a $23 million no-bid contract that had been awarded under questionable circumstances.
On Wednesday, Deputy Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago was still unable to say when those radios would go into service. Even after exhaustive testing, the Fire Department is still not convinced about the reliability of the digital frequencies or the number of transmitters, officials said.
“They have to be perfect for safety reasons. People talk on those things. Digital is all brand new throughout the fire services in the country. We’re making sure ours is the best we can get it. We’re almost there,” Santiago said.
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