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High-rise fire training essential
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- The new high-rise and large box-store buildings of today require significantly different firefighting knowledge and techniques than buildings of earlier generations.
Cognizant of that fact, Danbury Fire Chief Geoff Herald held an all-day seminar Saturday for Danbury Fire Department personnel and area volunteer and paid firefighters.
Called "High-Rise Operations 101," the talk was conducted by Chief Ron Kanterman, a fire-service training and fire protection specialist with Gold Horn Associates.
The event was held at Danbury Hospital, sponsor of the seminar along with the Danbury Housing Authority and Danbury Fire Department.
"You can see six buildings in the city considered high-rise structures of six-stories or more, but we also have many other buildings with the same issues because of their size and configuration, including The Matrix and Danbury mall," Herald said.
"The hospital already has one tower and is building another one with heliport. It will have a state-of-the-art fire suppression system, but a fire there could be labor-intensive," he added.
"We're a big town growing into big city issues. That made a seminar like this essential," he said.
Kanterman explained that firefighting is changing.
"We're finding some of the science about fires is not what we thought," he said. "Our assumptions were based on being in buildings built 100 years ago, and they are not the same as buildings built over the last years."
He noted that these new buildings are "all plastic -- the furniture, the computers, the partitions, the phones. There's thousands of cables and wires running in the building which means extreme heat rising rapidly as they all melt,
"You're going to have smoke conditions and need manpower to search for occupants," he said. "Elevators will go out within 20 minutes, delaying getting hoses and equipment to the floors."
Kanterman said that the 25 firefighters on each shift in Danbury could make "a good start" on one of these fires. But they would be "exhausted quickly and need another 25 to 50 firefighters behind them quickly."
Herald plans to develop standard operating procedures from the information learned through the seminar.
"It's not just luck that we haven't had a major fire," Herald said. "It's risk reduction through strictly enforced fire code and building codes. It's thanks to the fire marshal that our structures are safe."
Cop charged with sex assault on teen |
More victims might come forward after a veteran Trumbull police officer was charged Tuesday with sexually assaulting a teenage girl he befriended at a statewide academy for high school students interested in becoming police officers.
William Ruscoe, 45, a drill instructor at the Cadet Police Academy at the University of Hartford, flirted with a number of teenage girls at the weeklong camp held every year, State Police investigators said. One of the girls turned him in after she became jealous of his attentions to another girl, police said.
State police said Ruscoe was charged with sexually assaulting one of the girls in his Trumbull home, binding her with his police handcuffs after pulling out his handgun.
"I am deeply troubled and concerned by the nature of the charges that have been presented," said Trumbull Police Chief Thomas Kiely. "We will make every effort to ensure that the integrity of the department and its officers is preserved as this case is investigated, and that the case is handled in a fair and timely manner."
In October, state police were called to a high school in Tolland County after a female student, now 18, told them she had been having a relationship with Ruscoe.
The teen said Ruscoe had begun sending her inappropriate text messages after meeting her at the cadet camp at the University of Hartford in June 2012, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. The teen said Ruscoe would often ask her what she was wearing; she responded by sending him naked photos of herself.
The affidavit states the teen told detectives that Ruscoe sent her partially nude photos of himself and nude photos of his wife; he also sent photos of a half-naked, leather-clad woman.
Police found a series of texts and photos on the teen's cellphone that came from Ruscoe's cellphone, the affidavit states.
The affidavit also said the teen became upset when she learned Ruscoe had begun a relationship with a Trumbull girl.
That teen, now 17, recounted to state police that Ruscoe expressed his desire to have a sexual relationship with her after she had taken her physical assessment exam with the cadets last March.
The Trumbull teen said Ruscoe began texting her that he loved her and described in detail things he wanted to do with her sexually, according to the affidavit.
In mid-June, Ruscoe picked the Trumbull teen up at her home and drove her to a scenic overlook near Marnick's restaurant in Stratford, where he gave her a silver bracelet that read, "Made with Love," and then tried to kiss her, the affidavit states. On another occasion, the teen said, Ruscoe showed up drunk at her home and groped her.
The affidavit states that in fall 2013, after the Trumbull girl and Ruscoe had worked as security at the Battle of the Bands event at Trumbull High School, Ruscoe drove her to his Trumbull home. When she balked at having sex with him, the affidavit states, Ruscoe plunked his service weapon down on the kitchen counter in front of her, then ordered her upstairs to his bedroom and grabbed his handcuffs on the way up the stairs.
Once in the bedroom he pulled off the teen's cadet uniform and, over her many protests, sexually assaulted her, the affidavit states.
Police said Ruscoe later told the teen he was concerned about getting arrested for what he did to her, but would kill himself rather than go to jail.
The affidavit states that detectives found at least two dozen photos of the teen in various stages of undress in Ruscoe's cellphone, as well as nude photos he had taken of himself.
Ruscoe was charged with second-degree sexual assault, third-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault and tampering with a witness. He was released after posting $50,000 bond pending arraignment in state Superior Court in Bridgeport next week.
Ruscoe, who joined the Trumbull Police Department in June 1994, has been suspended, pending an internal investigation. He has served as an adviser for the Trumbull Police Department's police Explorer program, now known as the Trumbull Police Cadet Post.
"Neither I nor any of the cadets will have a comment," said Trumbull Police Sgt. Jenna Racz, an official of the program.
"He is due in court March 5 and we anticipate a not-guilty plea at that time, and we will review the state's case and go from there," said Ruscoe's lawyer, Michael Fitzpatrick.
Law enforcement sources close to the case said they believe there are other victims and they are urging them to contact the state police.
Ruscoe was one of several officers who took part in a controversial police raid in Easton in 2008. The state ruled that the officers involved did nothing wrong, but a civil suit settled earlier this year resulted in a $3.5 million award for the family of 33-year-old Gonzalo Guizan, who was shot to death in the raid.
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