Originally, I aimed to do a story about some Atlanta firemen being heroes, about performing bravely under duress, about saving lives, which is why most got into the business in the first place.
» Read angry response from Mayor Reed's office
You’d think the city of Atlanta would jump to get a feel-good yarn like that out there.
Well, not so. Firefighters are not in high regard these days with Mayor Kasim Reed. (I'm not, either, by the way.)
Two weeks ago, three firemen — Capt. Chip Newell, Sgt. Christopher Martin and Sgt. Jesse Yates — received a fleeting glimmer of recognition after they entered an inferno and saved three kids in a house fire.
It was a straight-from-the-movies scene and I thought recounting the event as seen through their eyes was in order. Folks talk a lot about public service these days. And pulling kids from burning buildings is about as public service-oriented as you get. Also, it’s fairly uncommon. Guys go an entire career without ever doing it, which makes it even a better story.
Retired Battalion Chief Bill Brockman went 29 years without ever personally saving anyone in a fire.
“It’s a rare thing,” he told me. “The chance to save somebody’s life is something that could be the highlight of a career. It’s such a treasured thing.”
The fact that two of the heroes came from Atlanta Fire and Rescue Station 2 made it all the more intriguing. Two days before the life-saving events, that same station was in the news because some young ladies working for an escort service performed a photo-shoot there.
The racy photos appeared on Backpage.com, a website that allows those with certain proclivities to find each other without having to whisper to complete strangers on MARTA.
It’s a truism of life that semi-clad women straddling fire engines will find an audience. It’s equally true that “Barely Clad!!!” makes great television, so TV crews converged upon the southeast Atlanta firehouse like it was a Five-Alarm News Story.
Mayor Reed quickly issued a terse statement that someone had some ‘splaining to do. He said he was going to take “decisive action,” because everyone knows Hizzoner’s actions are never indecisive.
“We’re going to fully investigate it, get to the bottom of it, and fire the people involved,” said Reed, doing his best to imitate a Western sheriff fixing to hang the varmints after a fair trial. So far, two firefighters have been suspended.
No heroes while lawsuit is pending
So, when I approached Capt. Chip Newell about the hero thing, he was happy to oblige. He said he’d contact sergeants Christopher Martin and Jesse Yates and they’d talk all about it.
He told me to just get an OK from the fire administration first, because that’s procedure. No sweat, we figured. We were wrong. There was sweat. The mayor’s office would have to approve the story.
After a couple days of back and forth, a mayoral aide wanted to know my ulterior motive for the story. At a recent press conference, the mayor sort of called me out, describing my work as irresponsible.
But I had no ulterior motive. What, I need more than strippers and heroes?
Plus, there’s the matter of firefighters and cops feuding with Reed over not getting a pay raise this year. The public safety unions even rented some billboard space this summer to chide the mayor. And yard signs are popping up.
Police and fire have on ongoing lawsuit against the city that challenges the mayor’s 2011 pension reform, a move that cost public safety employees 5 percent more. Some sort of reform was needed to save the city from the dire financial straits facing other cities. Reed has steadfastly refused to give public safety workers a raise while the lawsuit lives. (It lost the first round and is on appeal.)
Mayor Reed once summed up his hard-line reasoning in his evocative — and decisive — manner: “You’re not going to rob the train and shoot the conductor in the head at the same time.”
‘The morale is in the pits’
So as it finally turned out, no, the three firemen were not available to talk about what happened in that fire, per Mayor Reed’s office.
“Sorry. Can’t make it happen,” a spokeswoman said without further comment.
None was needed.
Vic Bennett, a fire lieutenant who heads the union local, is not surprised at the good-news blackout.
“The mayor is against anything coming out with the fire department unless it’s negative,” said Bennett, who has 14 years on the force. “It’s simply one of his tactics — not recognizing some of our own heroes because he’s so torn up about his personal reputation on his pension reform.”
Retired chief Brockman, who does not agree with the lawsuit, had similar thoughts. “He holds a grudge; I guess he doesn’t want the fire department to look good.
“The morale is in the pits,” he added. “The young guys don’t stay. I’m afraid the whole culture is being lost.”
The AJC recently wrote a story saying the number of firefighters retiring or moving to other departments is double what it was in recent years. There are roughly 1,000 sworn firefighters.
So, try to imagine what these guys did
Anyway, I was disappointed not to sit down and hear Newell, Martin and Yates tell what happened. Two weeks on, the children are still hospitalized, but I’m told they should recover.
The firemen were not allowed to describe the worst-case scenario of coming to a scene with victims trapped in the midst of flames and blinding, toxic smoke. They could not talk about what they thought as they followed a hose team through the front door, feeling their way down a hallway to the rear of the home.
We’ll leave to the imagination the circumstances as Sgt. Jesse Yates felt an unconscious child on the floor, broke a window, passed the kid out and went back in to continue the search. Or how, a couple minutes later, they found the second child in the hallway and Capt. Newell carried him out the front door.
Or when Sgt. Christopher Martin found the third child and passed him through a window to firefighters outside who had torn away the burglar bars.
I’m sure it was all very dramatic.
