'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
The District's ambulances have been sabotaged. The assertion, laid out in a D.C. inspector general's report, is the latest tit-for-tat allegation highlighting the erosion of relations between labor and management within the city's Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department.
A plan to redeploy the D.C. fire department's emergency medical workers in a way that would leave ambulances staffed with no paramedics during the overnight hours is being greeted with skepticism from stakeholders in the D.C. Council, the firefighters union and the community.
A recently issued report on the D.C. fire department's response to a fire in an abandoned house that severely burned five firefighters in April 2011 makes new recommendations on training, equipment and protocol.
With D.C. firefighters crisscrossing the city on emergency calls related to power outages, downed trees and heat-induced illnesses, one crew went out of service for about an hour Saturday afternoon on an unusual assignment: to fill a swimming pool for a private resident at a Northeast home.
The District's police and fire unions are asking the city's inspector general to investigate the destruction of personnel files found burning inside trash bins and a car at the D.C. fire training academy.
At least three people were injured in four shootings in the District over a 24-hour period Sunday and Monday, according to fire and police officials.
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The District's new fire chief has ordered members to use a patch with a pre-2007 department seal on their uniforms, reversing the phase-in of a Maltese eagle logo ordered under the city's former fire chief.
The District is in such dire financial straits — one city lawmaker characterized it as a "crisis" — that officials are considering cuts to such sancrosant agencies as public safety and schools to ward off a growing fiscal 2011 deficit and a looming $345 million budget gap in 2012.
