By Eden Laikin
Newsday
OCEANSIDE, N.J. — The Oceanside Fire Department is investigating complaints from residents that volunteer firefighters driving a fire truck back from a parade crashed a block party last month and that some of them were drinking.
Nine residents and guests who attended the party on Oceanside Parkway on Aug. 11 said in interviews that several of the firefighters got into a fight with three men at the event. At least four of the residents said they recently gave statements to an assistant fire chief who was conducting the internal probe.
All nine interviewed told Newsday that police didn’t respond, despite at least two 911 calls. Police said they responded to three fights on Oceanside Parkway that night, but none of those were in the immediate area where the nine witnesses were. The Board of Fire Commissioners of the 240-member fire department directed the chief’s office to present the findings of the probe at its meeting tonight.
Doug McKee, a guest whose hand was broken during the fight, said he reported the altercation to Nassau County police the next day and later to the county district attorney’s office. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office would not say whether the matter was under investigation.
Anthony Iovino, an attorney for the fire district, confirmed the internal investigation and said that, “if it appears there’s probable cause that there was a breach of department rules, the board can direct the department to conduct disciplinary hearings.”
Several of the nine guests and residents interviewed said a hook and ladder truck carrying more than a dozen firefighters drove down Oceanside Parkway about 9:45 p.m. with its lights on and sirens blaring.
One of the firefighters took down tape that closed off the street and the truck drove down the block as children were playing and guests were eating in the middle of the road, they said. A dark-colored pickup truck followed, many of the witnesses said.
The nine interviewed said some of the firefighters were drinking. “A couple of them threw down beer bottles when things [the fight] happened,” said Jimmy Dolan, a guest at the party. “A couple of the guys were still drinking beer even when they got back on the truck.”
Robert Anderson Sr., a former volunteer firefighter from Rockland County who was at his daughter’s home, said that “just about all of them were slurring their words.”
“It was totally unbecoming of the fire department, I felt,” he said.
The firefighters from the Salamander Hook Ladder & Bucket Company, clad in dress uniform, were returning from a parade in Freeport where they won a first-place trophy for Best Appearing Fire Department, according to a Web site that tracks fire department competitions.
Witnesses said the men, mostly in their 20s, waved the trophy around as they jumped off the truck. They told partygoers they were there to visit a fellow firefighter who lives on Oceanside Parkway.
Many of those interviewed said the truck narrowly missed hitting McKee’s 3-year-old son, who was on a bicycle.
“It was careless of them, with the amount of kids that were there,” Anderson said. “Everybody started scampering off the street, pulling their tables out of the road.”
Dolan, who was there with his wife and children, said he confronted firefighters and a fight began. Six or seven other firefighters joined in, he said.
Jennifer Burnside, who lives on Oceanside Parkway, said she saw McKee coming out of the mix with his “shirt ripped around his neck and people grabbing him. It was craziness.”
Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.