Firefighters' Warnings Ignored Before Fatal NY Blaze
By Steven Cook
Source The Daily Gazette, Schenectady, N.Y.
April 02 -- SCHENECTADY, NY -- The Schenectady City Fire Department filed a total of 14 reports with the city codes department regarding 104 Jay St. in the two years that preceded a fatal fire there—reports that apparently were ignored, according to a new report released Monday.
The fire department's reports focused on issues that were central to the fire's spread and residents' response to the March 6, 2015 blaze, according to a Schenectady County District Attorney's Office statement issued Monday.
The violations noted the lack of fire doors in stairwells, inoperable smoke alarms and concerns about the building's fire alarm box and residents' efforts to silence it, according to the DA's report.
One report, issued by a fire lieutenant on March 1, 2014—one year before the fire that killed four residents—stated: "Building poses numerous hazards that can/will be fatal to its occupants and EMS."
The building and codes department acknowledged receipt of each of the reports but saw them as advisories, handing them off to individual inspectors. The department had no method of recording them or the results of any resulting inspections, and no reported actions were taken regarding the warnings.
The DA's report was compiled by the Schenectady County grand jury that investigated the fatal fire, beginning in late 2016. That grand jury returned indictments against building manager Jason Sacks and city inspector Kenneth Tyree.
Sacks is to be sentenced Friday, after pleading guilty in January to criminally negligent homicide related to the four deaths. Tyree is to be sentenced in May on a conviction related to his job application. Tyree was acquitted on charges related to the deaths.
The fire claimed the lives of residents Harry Simpson, 59; Robert Thomas, 31; Jermaine Allen, 37; and Berenices Suarez, 33. Dozens of others were injured, and the building and an adjacent structure were destroyed.
The focus of the new grand jury report, released now that the criminal cases have concluded, is to ensure changes in the city building and codes department.
The grand jury called for a new policy manual that includes a host of updates, including defining supervisory responsibilities, use of GPS monitors for inspectors, performance standards and reviews.
The grand jury also recommended immediate inspections of all multiple-unit residences in the city, requiring secure key boxes for city access to those buildings and requiring the fire department to send its reports to both the codes department and the city Corporation Counsel's office.
The grand jury recommended the city fill a long-vacant fire inspector position, as well.
The fire department would likely have filed more than 14 code violation reports regarding 104 Jay St., if it weren't for the code department's lack of action on previous reports, according to the DA's release.
"Firefighters testified that the absence of any remedial action for the conditions they complained about discouraged them from continuing to file (the reports) in relation to 104 Jay St.," the report states.
After "dozens and dozens" of false alarms there, the city also did nothing to enforce a code that allowed fees to be assessed against owners for persistent alarms.
"The multiplicity of these false alarms contributed to tenant indifference to danger and directly led to tenants accessing the fire alarm panel box and silencing the alarm without knowledge of how to reset the system," the release reads.
All levels of the building's alarm system had been silenced and not reset by the day of the fire, meaning the alarm never audibly went off during the blaze.
District Attorney Robert Carney noted in Monday's press release that the report is dated in May, and that some of the recommendations—immediate inspections and background checks for code enforcement officers—have already been done or are being done, and other changes have been made, as well.
"But this investigation has revealed that more needs to be done," Carney said in the prepared statement accompanying the report. "I am hopeful that the grand jury's hard work in this matter will result in much-needed improvement in the operation of the bureau of code enforcement and that the expertise of the Schenectady Fire Department is regarded with the gravity it requires."
No lawsuits were filed against the city related to the blaze, and the standard deadline for such lawsuits has long passed. However, new information could reopen the matter, officials have said. Attorneys representing those killed or injured could not immediately be reached for comment on the significance of the grand jury's findings.
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