Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Excerpts from WLSTVChicago.com:
A protest in Chicago ended in several arrests as police leaders from around the world gathered Saturday at McCormick Place for an annual conference. Demonstrators are demanding racial justice.
Dozens of people were arrested as a result of the protests, most of them from a sit-in in the middle of the street. Their goal was to disrupt the largest gathering of public safety officials of its kind.
Several hundred protesters marched from Chicago Police headquarters at 35th and Michigan to McCormick Place Saturday afternoon, where the International Association of Chiefs of Police gathered this weekend. The conference is the largest of its kind nationwide, with over 14,000 public safety officers in attendance. The protest was organized by community organizations calling on police departments nationwide to change the way they engage with communities of color.
“What we’re looking for today is to have our voices heard, to show the coalition of voices, to show that black lives matter, to make our voices heard to this very powerful organization that sets policies,” said protester Maria Hadden. “We want less money for policing and more money for community services.”
A sit-in was also staged by another group, blocking the road at Cermak and Indiana. Police eventually arrested about a dozen protesters after police say they would not get up.
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
Tim Olk photo
#1 by LFD 543 on October 27, 2015 - 6:47 PM
Tim or anyone, do you know which company and/or companies were on this job? Squad 1? …and?
#2 by Bill Post on October 27, 2015 - 11:14 AM
Yes Tom they still are both equipped to do extrications , Scuba diving work and even building Collapse work, not to mention High Angle Rescues. The only thing is that if the Police are doing a High Angle rescue and they need an Aerial Ladder or an Elevating Platform “Tower Ladder” then they have to call the fire department. The NYPD ESU units had been handling “jumper” threatened suicide cases for years.
Another thing is that the New York City Fire Department is now very well equipped to do extrications as not only are do their 5 Rescue Companies and 7 Squad companies have extrication gear on board but all 143 of their Truck “Ladder” companies have Hurst tools and Air “Lifting” Bags on board. While Chicago’s Truck companies all have Hurst tools they aren’t equipped with Airbags like New York’s Truck companies are.
Even though the New York City Fire Department does have Scuba Divers and have a Scuba Unit, the Police department is given overall control of Water and Ice Rescues. To this day only the Police have Rescue helicopters and if they need them for a High Rise fire they call them in and have special protocols for their use.
The New York City Airports (Laguardia and JFK as well as Newark’s Liberty International Airport) fire/rescue departments are part of the Port Authority which is a separate interstate agency as Liberty Field is in New Jersey.
#3 by Bill Post on October 27, 2015 - 10:24 AM
Yes Mike I totally agree with you on having the police do that type of work and we both agree that it would make more sense if the Police just added a “demonstrator” extrication function to their capabilities. That unit could be attached to their swat team or special operations division. I just don’t see Chicago going to a “full blown” ESU unit but in reality we both agree that they should have some type of a utility unit so that the police would be equipped to do such extrications.
#4 by mike mc on October 27, 2015 - 9:05 AM
Bill, it’s not more a fantasy than a 4th squad in the city. It could be done. The important point is that FF’s should not be performing this function. CPD could establish a unit within a few weeks, perhaps even sooner, with cutting tools. They could make it part of the hostage-barricade unit, which I assume already has forcible entry tools.
You are just asking for trouble by having FFs perform this function. Sooner or later, the power saw is going to slip.
#5 by tom sullivan on October 27, 2015 - 8:16 AM
bill post,
a very good & concise history of ESU & FDNY rescues.
on one occasion we were with a FDNY b/c responding to a “pin-in” on one of the x-ways there. the ESU unit got to the scene first and held FDNY response, not unusual then.
#6 by Bill Post on October 27, 2015 - 4:27 AM
Mike Mc ,I can see that you are a New York fan. That’s a good fantasy but you are not going see the federal government help to recreate “an NYPD” capable unit in Chicago.The Emergency Services Unit is mainly an east coast (New York/New Jersey phenomena and there is really alot of redundancy and duplication of services in the few cities and towns that do run “Police Emergency Services ” Units. During the 70’s,80’s and 90’s and perhaps even before that Police Emergency Services Units would sometime get into arguments and fights as to who would take which emergencies. Finally the City of New York had issued a directive as to what department was in charge of what type of emergency.
I can see something more like perhaps what I would call a “special utility unit” which would in effect be an a special equipment unit that could be attached to either the swat or the special operations unit of the Chicago Police Department. Either way it would be something less then an ESU or an Emergency Services Unit.
For those of you are unfamiliar. The New York City Police department has an Emergency Service Unit which serves both as their “Swat” Team and as a Rescue Squad, which in most places is strictly a Fire Department duty. However in New York City the Police Emergency Services Unit had been handling “non fire” rescues and emergencies for quite a while now.
The NYPD Emergency Service unit started in the late 1920’s early 1930’s and it was originally used as a riot and a machine gun squad which used open body rescue squad trucks ,similar to the old fire engines.They also began equipping them for rescue, first aide and inhalator work. During the 1930’s and the 1940’s the New York City Police and run with 20 Emergency Squads which had run out of specially designated Police stations and they each had their normally assigned district.During the 1950’s they were reduced to 10 Emergency Service Squads running out of 10 Police Stations however each Emergency Service Squad had several smaller Emergency Radio Patrols assigned to them which would patrol their running district while the Larger Squad would go out on the ” larger” or the confirmed emergencies.
While this was happening the New York City Fire Department which also did have “Rescue companies” never ran with more then 4 or 5 (depending on the year) of them and the Fire Department Rescue companies were created in 1915 as an Air Mask Squad to rescue trapped fire fighters. They were in reality an early version of the RIT companies. The public ambulances in New York City were always provided by several of the public and private hospitals. In later years the city Ambulances were run by the New York CIty “Health and Hospitals” Corporation and by some of the private hospitals. It wasn’t until 1996 that the City Ambulances had become part of the fire department and to this day when on duty the ambulances are stationed at designated street corners where they wait to get to dispatched to a call. The majority of the ambulance stations are also separate from the fire stations with only 2 exceptions and the ambulance stations are basically used to change shifts ,resupply and do light vehicle maintenance work. There are less then 40 Ambulance stations in New York City while there are over 200 fire stations in New York City.
So after the 1930’s when the NYPD Emergency Service Squad was created the Emergency Service Squad handled ” inhalator runs” and non fire emergencies. Keep in mind that New York City’s Fire Rescue companies were used mostly for fire duty until in more recent years when the fire load had gone down after the 1960’s and 1970’s which are known as the “War Years”.
#7 by Jim on October 26, 2015 - 11:35 PM
Murphy,
PL Vulcan teaches a man in machine class at FDIC or will come out to your department. They cover this type of protest.
#8 by Bmurphy on October 26, 2015 - 11:23 PM
Any details (other than from the Wikipedia link) as to the configuration, materials and other related issues regarding the devices the protestors where secured in? It would be very helpful to know what they all had to deal with and exactly how the devices were defeated. I’ll bet that most of us have the potential for this sort of thing in our districts (high schools, colleges, government facility, etc, etc). It’d be great for the CFD guys to share with the rest of us what they encountered and how they overcame it.
Perhaps a future NIPSTA, IFSI or FDIC class?
#9 by MABAS 21 on October 26, 2015 - 7:39 PM
Kudos to the members of the CFD for handling this situation in a professional manner as it was probably very intense at times dealing with these idiots.
#10 by Eric Haak on October 26, 2015 - 6:39 PM
If something were to happen these people could be in real danger. A stampede, a runaway car or unaware driver or another civilian that sees things a different way and these people would have no chance to defend themselves or get out of the way. Don’t think they have ever thought of the possibilities and may be a sign of their true intelligence.
#11 by John on October 26, 2015 - 4:19 PM
I had to look this stupidity up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_dragon_(manoeuver)
I respect the right to protest, but really? Come on…
#12 by John H on October 26, 2015 - 12:47 PM
Hopefully the protestors have to pay full restitution for the resources used to ‘free’ them. Should be sent to work camps if they can’t afford the tab. To bad the
first respondersfirefighters couldn’t just free them in two’s and let them wander around the city with their arms interlocked inside a pipe for the next few months…#13 by mike mc on October 26, 2015 - 9:53 AM
You can’t count on the demonstrators being passive. Time for CPD to organize emergency services units. They don’t have to start off as fully trained, fully equiped units like NYPD. Begin with forcible entry tools, cutting tools/saws, shotguns, and rifles in a small truck and build from there. Get some federal grant money with the long range goal of having NYPD capable units in five years.
You also can’t rely on FF’s patiently accepting verbal and physical abuse from demonstrators. Not trained to accept blatant in your face abuse (nor should they have to). Granted, demonstrator will probably be nice to someone holding a power tool over them, but … I can imagine several unpleasant scenarios that could have resulted from this.