Constitutional Law

KingCast presents the Truth about firefighers Cahill, Payne and proposed Robert Taylor's Law to protect tenants.

By Christopher King

In the tragic Tai Ho fire investigation (See Boston Herald Story) Boston Fire Commissioner Roderick Fraser has challenged the Board of Inquiry over the toxicology reports of fallen firefighters Paul Cahill and Warren Payne. Ordinarily I would applaud without reservation, but there's someting more going on here that the mass media and public don't know about.

But I do.

See, when you want the truth about a situation involving firefighters, ask a firefighter involved in the tragedy, because he'll set you straight quick, fast and in a hurry. Details of my interview with Firefighter X from the rescue squad that day will follow tonight in the comments section, but in short you should know that while it is obviously improper to be drunk on the job (Cahill), and while trace amounts of marijuana and cocaine were in Payne's body, there's no causal connection between those facts and their deaths.

Hint: In the first picture, that's a flashfire caught at that exact moment that Firefighter Payne died. Read the comments for more on this.

So this means the city needs to shell out for all of the benefits owed to the families, and meanwhile that doesn't excuse the lack of a contract between the city and the firefighters' union for more than a year, either. That having been said, if there is substance abuse occurring on the job then that most certainly DOES need to be addressed, but the current policy is woefully inadequate, as noted in the comments.

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Firefighter X and I continued our discussion into the Gloucester tragedy in the Lorraine building (owned by 80 Middle Street Partners, LLC), and naturally talk turned to the Taylor legislation supported by the Gloucester Times as proposed by Crnilovic & Phillips Law Office, where I work. There's an organizational meeting on 28 Feb. 2008 at the Mayor's office on that, with State Senator Tarr and Representative Verga.

In sum, he's all about that legislation, particularly because it puts the consumer in a position to enforce the law right up front because it would require a landlord to inform a tenant of the code violations/lack of inspection more than 30 days out.

"In Massachusetts the fire department doesn't do the inspections," said Firefighter X. "So the cities are left to try to deal with it.... We need to be in there to make it right."

KingCast: Civil Rights with a vengeance.

Full post as published by Chris King's 1st Amendment Page on February 23, 2008 (boomark / email).