“There is no question that emotions are very, very high for all of us,” said Mayor Rudy Giuliani. 11 attack, clashed near ground zero when firemen overturned barricades and punched police officers during the protest by some 1,000 firefighters.įive policemen were assaulted and 12 firefighters arrested when firefighters broke through police barricades near the site of their finest hour in protests over recovery personnel cuts the mayor said were needed for safety reasons but firefighters said were a matter of money. On Friday, firefighters and policemen, praised as heroes after the Sept. With tensions still running high, things only got worse when members of the two departments clashed at ground zero:

At least one firefighter who was in the North Tower has supported that assessment, stating that he was not going to take an evacuation instruction from a cop that morning. In the opinion of one of the ESU officers, some of these firefighters essentially refused to take orders from cops. They further reported advising these firefighters to evacuate, but said that at times they were not acknowledged. Each was accustomed to responding independently to emergencies.Īt the heart of the issue, chain of command:ĭuring the descent, they reported seeing many firefighters who were resting and did not seem to be in the process of evacuating. But each considered itself operationally autonomous. were two of the pre-eminent emergency response organizations in the United States. Others told us that the problem has escalated over time and has hampered the ability of the city to respond well in emergency situations. Some characterized the more extreme manifestations of the rivalry – fistfights at the scenes of emergencies, for instance – as the actions of ”a few knuckleheads.” Some described the rivalry as the result of healthy organizational pride and competition. This rivalry has been acknowledged by every witness we have asked about it. The mayor’s creation of the Office of Emergency Management and the issuance of his Incident Command Directive were attempts to address the longstanding rivalry between the N.Y.P.D. The 9/11 Commission Report took issue with the “longstanding rivalry”: Rescue attempts at the Twin Towers were understandably chaotic. The officer sustained a broken rib and a sprained back when he was thrown over a wall and down a hill in the fracas at the Bryant Park Grill shortly before 11 p.m., police said. The Battle of the Badges turned ugly last night when a bunch of drunken firefighters at a midtown restaurant attacked a cop who came to aid the eatery’s besieged bouncer, police sources said. Plenty of drunken idiots in FDNY and to be fair NYPD regalia creeping around as well, oblivious or indifferent to the children in their midst during their George Carlin laced tirades.įrom where does all this negativity stem? Well …Ī firefighters’ night out gets sloppy, setting off a battle with police, as reported in the Daily News: I always chuckled to myself walking around the arena, passing overweight mothers in flannel shirts and FDNY jerseys cursing in front of their brood, some very visibly drunk, dragging them into bathrooms.Empty beer cans and bottles filled the planters closest to the entrances. Have you ever attended PD- FD events in the past? … I’ve heard mountains of vulgar abuse hurled towards the PD from the FD fans … And it is pretty embarrassing for this story to get picked up nationally, especially since half of ny news coverage about nypd is usually negative to begin with. sporting events in the past with us and them have also had their fair share of really visceral, unsportsmanlike comments coming from pd players or their fans while fd was just there to play a game and have a good time. Land pirate this and that, or complaining that they can theoretically get paid to sleep on duty, etc. … there is a history of pd’ ALWAYS bashing fd either in the street or on the rant here mostly out of jealously.

It all adds up.įirst, some context and analysis on Sunday’s melee from the notorious NYPD message board, Thee Rant: General machismo aside, they’ve clashed repeatedly over the years about serious issues, including September 11 and who’s in charge at an emergency scene, but also over purely trivial things, like a cat stuck in a tree.

But honestly, considering the long-standing departmental rivalry and all that testosterone, it’s surprising things like this don’t happen more often. New York City was thoroughly embarrassed over the weekend when the annual Fire Department versus Police Department charity hockey game devolved into an all-out brawl.

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