NEW YORK-- A pair of firefighters will be suspended without pay following their arrest for a barroom brawl with cops who were trying to shut down a Staten Island pub, officials said.
Jason Kipp, 30, and John Cooper, 25, have continued drawing pay - despite the felony charges against them - since last week because of administrative reasons, the FDNY said yesterday.
A Fire Department spokesman, Jim Long, refused to comment further.
Kipp and Cooper were allegedly off-duty and drunk last Friday at Beer Goggles, on Van Duzer Street, when cops arrived on an under-age drinking complaint.
After handing out several summonses shortly after 1 a.m., the four uniformed officers ordered the owners to close the establishment for the night. Kipp and Cooper, both Staten Island residents, objected.
The Police Department, which had been cracking down on the bar for several months, waited almost a week to release information about the brawl and the arrest.
Kipp and Cooper were busted hours after a firefighter, John Martinson, was killed battling a blaze at the Ebbets Field apartments in Brooklyn.
According to cops, the two off-duty firemen became belligerent and started an altercation with the officers.
Before the dust-up ended, the cops and firefighters were on the floor, where the suspects were kicking and flailing with officers trying to cuff them.
The cops walked away with a variety of sprains, scrapes and bruises. One officer had a broken hand.
The NYPD did not disclose the pummeling their officers suffered at the hands of the FDNY, blaming the oversight on the aftermath of a fatal fire.
"It may have been overlooked because we were dealing with press inquires . . . for the lieutenant firefighter's funeral," said Assistant Chief Michael Collins, a Police Department spokesman.
The firefighters, both assigned to Engine Co. 247 in Brooklyn, were charged with second- and third-degree assault and resisting arrest.
Republished with permission of The New York Post.
