Clash at ground zero reflects bitter history between NYC's police and fire departments

By DONNA DE LA CRUZ and TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writers

NEW YORK – The tension was there for weeks, simmering behind well-publicized stories of heroism and harmony at the World Trade Center disaster site.

Police officers grumbled that firefighters combing for human remains were looking only for their own. Firefighters bristled at suggestions they were getting in the way, rather than helping.

Finally, it got ugly: Police officers struggled to arrest angry firefighters demonstrating Nov. 2 near ground zero – a clash that both shattered the site's united-we-stand image and renewed a recurring feud between New York's "Finest" and "Bravest."

"You would think there would be a lot more camaraderie, but there isn't," said Thomas Reppetto, president of the Citizens Crime Commission and co-author of "NYPD: A City and Its Police."

The firefighter protest was sparked by the city's decision to scale back efforts to recover human remains at the massive crime scene where 343 firefighters and 23 officers were lost. The result: disorderly conduct and other charges against 18 demonstrators who tried to storm the site, declared a high-risk "frozen zone" by police.

In the days that followed, both sides lashed out at each other.

Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik publicly bashed firefighters and union officials for making "references to 'thugs, goons and retaliation."'

The union officials responded by postponing a memorial service at Madison Square Garden scheduled for Nov. 18, citing the arrests.

Hoping to soothe frayed nerves, city officials last week agreed to increase the limit on firefighters working at the trade center site from 25 to 50. On Saturday, they also decided to drop all charges against the firefighters, except one accused of assault.

"What happened at ground zero ... is unacceptable," said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a former prosecutor who normally takes a hard line on crime. "But we want to be able to put this behind us."

Despite the truce, hard feelings persist.

Sources familiar with the investigation of the ground zero flare-up said it was more raucous than reported. One female officer was "sucker-punched" in the face, they said. Another was beaten as he tried to handcuff a firefighter, who fled with one wrist still cuffed.

Photos and videotape of the melee were being used to identify the worst offenders. Police had planned to arrest at least three more firefighters before the investigation was halted last week.

The bad blood fits a pattern of strained relations dating to the 1930s, when the NYPD formed its own emergency response teams, Reppetto said. That's sometimes led to overlapping duties at emergencies – and disputes over who's in charge.

"The police here in New York City tend to be much more involved in emergency service work than police in other large cities," Reppetto said. "They go to high-rise rescues, for example, while in other cities, that is the fire department's job."

In the late 1980s, with fires in the city on the decline, police union officials began accusing firefighters of responding to police calls to justify their existence. One police officer arrested and handcuffed a firefighter in 1993 in a dispute over how to handle an auto accident.

The acrimony even surfaced when terrorists first struck the World Trade Center in 1993.

The fire department accused police of grandstanding when they used helicopters to pluck some victims off the roof of one of the twin towers. Police claimed firefighters looted bars and liquor stores in the wake of the bombing – an unsubstantiated charge that stirred more ill will.

Howard Safir, who did separate stints as fire and police commissioner under Giuliani, tired to ease potential conflicts by devising an "incident command structure." The policy defined each department's role at building collapses, hazardous material emergencies, explosions and bomb threats.

Police and firefighters "are committed and very enthusiastic about saving lives, and often the lines of jurisdiction cross," Safir said. "And when that happens, 99 percent of the time they can work together and do an effective job.

"The 1 percent of the time, some personalities get involved."

Retired fire captain William Schell said he saw occasional turf wars in his 22 years on the job. But he thinks the Nov. 2 incident was blown out of proportion.

"Every now and then people bang heads, but there's more of a camaraderie than people think," he said. "The cops come into the firehouse, have coffee, and we talk about the issues. There was no animosity."

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Fire Department: www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/fdny/home.html

Police Department: www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/nypd/home.html

AP-WS-11-11-01 1341EST