By Andrew Strickler
Newsday
Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.
SUFFOLK, N.Y. — A $50 ticket issued to a Suffolk assistant fire chief by a Suffolk County police officer last week has bruised feelings between the two departments and highlighted the sometimes vague rules about who is in charge during emergencies.
“There is no anger, but I’m not going to say this is a routine thing,” said Center Moriches Fire Chief Graham Madigan, who has asked the department’s attorney to fight the ticket given to his first assistant chief, William Renzetti.
Such turf battles are rare in Suffolk County, where firefighters and police officers routinely work side by side to secure the scenes of crimes and accidents, officials on both sides said. But the question of who is in charge when multiple agencies respond to emergencies is a “gray area,” even in relatively minor traffic accidents, according to Joseph Williams, Suffolk Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services commissioner.
Both police and fire officials described the incident that preceded the unusual summons - an overturned car on the shoulder of Sunrise Highway in Center Moriches on Aug. 16 - as a serious but routine call.
Although this conflict appears to have been more of a personal dispute than a jurisdictional one, officials said it developed in part because there is no one rule that establishes command, and officers from different agencies must rely on training and cool heads to establish responsibilities.
In this instance, as highway patrol police and Center Moriches firefighters arrived to help a person temporarily trapped in the flipped car, an argument broke out between Renzetti and police officers, according to Williams.
While Renzetti argued for closing both eastbound lanes to provide additional protection, Williams said, police wanted to allow the lane of traffic farthest from the accident to remain open. At some point after the argument, a patrol sergeant wrote Renzetti the ticket for refusing to obey a lawful order.
Williams said he did not know the exact nature of the conflict or what lawful order Renzetti allegedly refused to obey. “Both of them were trying to do their jobs, and what happened exactly between them, well, I don’t know,” Williams said. Renzetti was out of town yesterday and not available for comment.
Patchogue attorney Harold Trabold, who represents the Center Moriches Fire Department, said Renzetti was “definitely pleading not guilty” but that he was still looking into what sparked the disagreement. Trabold said the conflict appeared to have escalated when Sgt. Michael Mahr pursued Renzetti and wrote the ticket after Renzetti drove away from the scene.
“It’s the principle of the chief’s responsibility at the scene that’s at issue,” Trabold said. Madigan said his department would be willing to pay the ticket “if we thought in any way we were guilty.”
Williams noted that police usually arrive at traffic accidents before firefighters and set up a perimeter, which often includes diverting traffic.
“Generally, in my experience, I’ve seen the police department directing traffic in these kinds of incidents,” he said.
But Madigan argued that firefighters often arrive in greater numbers in larger vehicles that can be used to protect responders. “As a rule, firefighters take over traffic control in a traffic accident situation,” he said.
Both Williams and Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer called the confrontation an isolated incident. “We have an outstanding relationship with the fire service and we expect that to continue,” Dormer said.