Captain says he was only following widely known departmental policy by not inspecting Deutsche Bank building
By Ann Givens
Newsday (New York)
NEW YORK — A Fire Department captain who was reassigned after officials said he failed to ensure regular inspections at the former Deutsche Bank building, shot back yesterday, saying he is being made a scapegoat for what was a departmentwide policy to stay clear of the contaminated high-rise.
Capt. Peter Bosco - who formerly was in charge of Engine Company 10 on Liberty Street, just steps from the building where the fatal fire occurred Aug. 18 - said through his lawyer that he took his post long after the FDNY had stopped doing site visits at the building.
“It was a well-known, unwritten policy that it wasn’t being inspected,” said John Bosco, Bosco’s brother, a Staten Island attorney. “Every member of that firehouse, both before he arrived and after, knew that.”
Peter Bosco, 48, was given desk duty Monday as part of the investigation into the controversial inferno, in which two firefighters died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Deputy Chief Richard Fuerch and Battalion Chief John McDonald also were reassigned to department headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn for what officials said was their failure to have the building inspected or to draw up a plan in advance for fighting a fire there.
FDNY spokesman Jim Long said department officials still are investigating why inspections at the building halted.
“The department is looking into the reasons why inspections stopped at that location,” he said.
In a statement released yesterday, John Bosco asked why personnel at Engine 10 weren’t given training or equipment for inspecting a hazardous building if the company was expected to inspect the former Deutsche Bank building every two weeks.
Glenn Corbett, a fire science professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, agreed that it would be odd for firefighters in the local stationhouse to make a decision as important as whether the former Deutsche Bank building would be inspected, and by whom.
“This, in my opinion, was not something that you just hand over to local people and say, ‘Deal with it,’” Corbett said.
Both John Bosco and the president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, the union of the reassigned officers, yesterday questioned whether the decision not to inspect the building was made by someone who ranked higher than any of the men who were assigned to desk duty earlier this week.
In particular, UFOA President John McDonnell said a memo issued by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office shows that at least two high-ranking FDNY officers toured the building on April 6, 2005, and should have been aware of the conditions there. McDonnell yesterday wrote a letter to Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta asking for the report that was generated from that tour.
John Bosco said some blame for the lack of inspections goes to high-ranking officials.
“This goes right to the top, and if they’re the ones doing the investigation, I don’t see how it can be fair,” he said.
Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.