By Carolyn P. Smith
Belleville News-Democrat
Copyright 2008 Belleville News-Democrat
BELLEVILLE, Ill. — Area mayors and fire chiefs, agents with the U.S. marshal’s service and area police gathered last week at the annual Emergency Medical Services barbecue to fete first responders for the important work they do.
A hot topic was the recent shooting of a Medstar ambulance driver in East St. Louis. “We need to talk about how this occurred, how the suspect left the scene and followed the ambulance to the road. We need to lay out our safety concerns and bring in the workers and hear what their concerns are. We don’t want anything like this happening again,” Charlie Kelley, co-owner of Medstar Ambulance Co., said during the barbeque held Friday.
Herb Simmons, manager of Medstar Ambulance Co., said he doesn’t want the dialog with city officials and other first responders to get started and then die out. He said it has to be a cooperative effort from all parties all of the time to keep the communication lines open between everybody.
“We’re going to look at how we can get smarter and work better together,” he said.
Medstar EMT Patrick Bierman, 23, was shot May 19 while responding to the scene of a shooting in the 1500 block of North 51st Street in Washington Park. He remains hospitalized.
Kelley said the first responders should also be apart of the communications process with city and community leaders “because they are the ones who knock on the doors.”
East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks said, “Hopefully we will not have others copy-catting.”
Asked whether police would begin to escort the ambulances in East St. Louis to and from the scenes they respond to, Parks said when it was clearly necessary, they will do so.
Belleville Mayor Mark Eckert said he was an ambulance driver in the 1970s and saw some dangerous situations. He said the situation that happened last Monday was a reminder “that we continue to communicate where the areas are that we have issues.”
East St. Louis Fire Chief William H. Fennoy called the shooting “a foolish senseless act. And, the perpetrator should be punished to the full extent of the law.”