CHP detain firefighter while he’s working
By Pauline Repard, San Diego Union-Tribune
CHULA VISTA — A California Highway Patrol officer handcuffed and detained a Chula Vista firefighter for refusing to move his engine out of traffic at a crash scene Tuesday night, prompting a nationwide storm of online commentaries on Wednesday.
The firefighter had parked the engine behind an ambulance in the fast lane of Interstate 805 near East Naples Drive, where a sedan had flipped over a concrete guard rail and two people were reported injured.
Chula Vista Fire Chief Dave Hanneman said fire crews are trained to position their rigs to block oncoming traffic.
The state owns the highway, it would be the officers call, a safe assumption is there’s way more behind this story.
Maybe the officer had to wait through the needless traffic jam and was angry.
Yeah, like CHP never blocks traffic when issuing a ticket to someone parked safely off the highway…
The new interagency cooperation paradigm.
CHP may be incident commander, but he either wants Fire and Rescue on the scene or he doesn’t. If he wants them, then they’re responsible for their own safety procedures.
Even dumber was that he bypassed the Fire Service chain of command. Fire provides a service – not warm bodies for CHP to move around at will.
Dumbest of all, of course, was that he took the fire fighter into custody. How was that supposed to get the rig moved? Was he going to keep arresting folks until he found one who’d comply?
I’ll bet that guy’s a real whiz at dealing with the public.