Battle Over Blue Lights Rages at Conn. Fire Department

BLOOMFIELD, Ind. -- There's a power struggle going on at the highest level of the Blue Hills Fire District -- over who gets to use flashing blue lights to respond to fire calls.

Should it be Fire Commissioner Jimmy Davis, a retired truck driver who has a disability and whose personal Ford Crown Victoria is tricked out like a state police cruiser, with flashing blue lights installed on the rear deck and behind its front grille?

Or should it be Assistant Fire Chief Roy Rickis, who supervises the Blue Hills Fire Department's 40 or so firefighters at working fires or other emergency calls?

For the moment, it's neither, because the two have managed to block each other from using blue lights on their vehicles.

The standoff started in January when Rickis, then acting chief, decided not to renew Davis' state-mandated permit to use flashing blue lights on his vehicle, even though he's had the lights for years.

"It was against the law [for Davis] to have it," Rickis explained. "You have to be an active firefighter. It had to be done."

Davis, 64, a Blue Hills Fire District commissioner for 13 years, acknowledges that he retaliated by taking away the department-issued SUV that Rickis uses to respond to fire calls.

"My dumb-ass assistant chief took it upon himself to discontinue my permit," Davis said. "I took his vehicle away because he had no authorization to do what he did."

Davis, a former firefighter who has been with the department for 37 years, said Rickis was lucky he wasn't fired and only had his truck taken away.

"He messed with me," Davis said. "Someday when I feel it's right, I may give it back to him."

Meanwhile, Rickis has spent the last three months driving to fire and accident calls in his own pickup truck, which has no emergency lights.

"It's not right," Rickis said. "I got stuck in traffic. But I take it with a grain of salt."

Davis has had flashing blue lights on his personal car for years, having had his permit renewed annually by fthen-Fire Chief Art Gold even though he's not an active firefighter and his disability requires him to carry a folding walker in the back seat. He keeps a mobility scooter in the Blue Hills firehouse to help him get around there.

Gold, who retired in December, acknowledged signing off on Davis' permit, saying Davis had told him that police officers were preventing him from getting to the scene of fire calls. Gold said that he considered rescinding the permit last year.

"But I knew I was retiring, so I figured I'd let the new chief take care of it," he said.

News that Davis no longer had a permit for his flashing lights apparently reached the police department. On April 26, Davis was given a $92 ticket for using his flashing lights to go to an emergency call.

A few days later, Davis was following a Blue Hills department vehicle to an emergency call around midnight and ran a red light. When he got to the scene, Bloomfield police Lt. Mark Samsel, who was stopped at the light facing Davis, wrote him another ticket for $129 for failure to obey a traffic signal.

Davis, who said he plans to fight the tickets, charges that the police department is targeting him, allegedly because the fire district discontinued its $30,000 annual contract to use the police department's dispatch service in 2006.

"I'm trying to do a public service and you have these knuckleheads messing with you," Davis said earlier this week as he reclined in the front seat of his Crown Victoria, which had been backed into a bay at the firehouse.

"I'm just not going to go to any more calls."

But it didn't take long for Davis to reconsider. He said he's thought about using the now-available department SUV to respond to calls, lights and sirens flashing. Or, he said, he might donate his Crown Victoria to the department, making it legal to use with blue lights.

Bloomfield Police Chief Paul Hammick said Davis' allegations about being targeted by police were "patently false."

A solution to the blue light stalemate may be near, though.

On Wednesday, acting Chief Robert Farmer was chosen to be the department's permanent chief.

The vote was 1-0 by the three-member fire district commission. Commissioner Jerry Hughes, who often votes with Davis, was absent. The third commissioner, Tanya Farmer, had to recuse herself from the vote because she's Robert Farmer's wife.

Chief Farmer said Thursday that he plans to schedule a meeting with the commissioners and seek to restore Rickis' privileges to drive the department SUV.

While one power play may be ending, Davis said he's thinking about his next target: the police department that issued him two tickets. Officers sometimes use the firehouse bathroom when they are on patrol.

Davis, referring to Officer Christina Benvenuto, who issued him the first ticket, said: "I told Officer Christina not to be surprised if her card key doesn't work the next time she needs to use the bathroom. She said 'Is that a threat?' I said, 'Take it anyway you want to.'"

Copyright 2012 - The Hartford Courant, Conn.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service