Attacks on firefighters are not rare
Firefighters in Le Roy described a dangerous situation Tuesday morning as they arrived on the scene of what would turn into a fatal shooting between an armed gunman and his neighbor, who has been identified as 67-year-old Norman Donald Ball.
Firefighters are accustomed to dangerous situations. That’s the nature of their job. But they don’t train for the kind of situation that firefighters encountered in Le Roy — a shooter intent on doing them harm.
For residents of Western New York, it immediately brought to mind the incidents on Christmas Eve 2012, when 62-year old William Spengler set fire to his house on Lake Road and ambushed firefighters from the West Webster Fire Department as they arrived.
Two firefighters were killed: 43-year-old Michael Chiapperini and 19-year-old Tomasz Kaczowka. Two other firefighters, Joseph Hofstetter and Theodore Scardino, were wounded in a standoff that lasted several hours.
On the day of that 2012 incident, John Perrone, executive director of Monroe Community College’s Homeland Security Management Institute, said this kind of shooting was an unusual event.
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“Police officers who respond to a crime scene are trained to be prepared for violent encounters. But if you’re a firefighter that’s probably the last thing on your mind,” Perrone said. “You’re trying to assess the type of fire you are facing, determine what kind of equipment you need, and establish a perimeter.”
“The last thing on your mind is that there may be a guy with a rifle waiting for you,” he said. “They’re really vulnerable in that regard. It’s easy for a shooter to call first responders to a scene and set up an ambush.”
Perrone's 2012 comments have proved to be prescient, as a number of similar incidents have occurred in the three years that have followed.
A New York City firefighter was shot in August as he helped battled a blaze on Staten Island. Inside the house was a man police later described as a violent gang leader who was a suspect in two slayings. NYFD Lt. James Hayes was shot in the hip and the ankle but survived. The shooter, Garland Tyree, held police at bay for six hours before he was killed in an exchange of gunfire.
In July, a Milwaukee firefighter was injured when someone fired three gunshots at an ambulance where he had just loaded a patient. A similar incident occurred in Omaha in 2013.
Two federal agencies — the U.S. Fire Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health — track firefighter injuries and deaths, but neither has compiled data on how often firefighters are the targets of violence.
But a review of news reports reveals several more instances that have occurred nationwide.
A 22-year-old firefighter named Ryan Hummert was killed by a gunman in suburban St. Louis in 2008. Responding to a fire, Hummert was shot and fatally wounded as he exited his firetruck. Two police officers who responded to the scene were also shot but survived their injuries. The suspect was killed in the blaze.
Long Island firefighter Justin Angell was shot by a lone gunman in March 2011 while responding to a motor vehicle accident. Police said that the driver of that vehicle was armed with an assault weapon and a semiautomatic handgun. Speaking to reporters after the incident, Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey speculated that the shooter, killed in a shootout with police, appeared to be on his way to carry out a mass killing. “Had he not been stopped by police, there very well could have been mayhem committed in this community," Mulvey said.
In Lexington, Kentucky, two firefighter paramedics were ambushed in February 2004 while trying to help a shooting victim. Brenda Cowan was shot and killed at the scene, while her fellow firefighter survived his injuries. According to the International Association of Women in the Fire Service, Cowan was the first African-American female career firefighter to die in the line of duty.
SLAHMAN@Gannett.com
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