Firefighter Arrested on Suspicion of Driving Fire Truck Drunk

This department is about 2 hours south of me, what a shame :(

A firefighter for the Lake-Missaukee Fire Department was arrested for driving a fire truck while drunk.

A deputy arrested Doug Shaw while he was pulling the fire truck into the fire barn driveway on December 27th. He was returning from a fire call.

"We got a call from the assistant fire chief of the Lake-Missaukee Fire Department that he believed one of their firefighters was intoxicated and riding one of their trucks," Missaukee County Sheriff Jim Bosscher told 9 & 10 News.

Shaw has since pleaded "not guilty" to misdemeanor drunk driving. He is due back in court on January 26th.

The arrest raises questions regarding the Lake-Missaukee Fire Department. The department's board held a special meeting to look into how a possibly drunk firefighter was allowed to drive a fire truck from the scene of a fire.

9 & 10 News obtained an audio recording of the special meeting held on December 30th to discuss the incident. The recording reveals mistrust between the fire department and some fire board members over the incident -- and mistrust over issues in the past. At times the meeting becomes dysfunctional.

A board member is heard saying "we're here to fact find and evidently we're not going to have the cooperation. So there's no sense in continuing. I'm not going to sit here all night."

Fire Chief Richard Bradley answered few questions in the meeting on advice of an attorney.

Deputy Fire Chief Keith Lounsbery told the board that he was too busy keeping an eye on his firefighters to be aware of a possibly intoxicated firefighter. But he says he called police as soon as it was suggested that Shaw might be drunk.

"It was reported to me and I reported it to the Sheriff's Department that a crime may be occurring," Lounsbery told the board.

The meeting does not address why a firefighter was allowed to drive a fire truck by himself, which is usually against fire department guidelines.

The board and fire department will have a regular scheduled meeting Tuesday evening at 7:00. 9 & 10 News will be there and have continuing coverage on 9 & 10 News at 11.

9 & 10's Ted Haller and Photojournalist Stephanie Adkins report on the arrest of the firefighter.

http://www.9and10news.com/category/story/?id=147588

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Permalink Reply by FETC on January 18, 2009 at 11:30am

This is a classic oral board question (if you have ever applied for a fulltime FIREFIGHTER position) most of the time it is you are BRAND NEW and your partner are checking the ambulance and you are concerned your partner is under the influence. He is a senior verteran, 20 years on the job. The answer that gets the least amount of points would be I would step out of the truck and call the cops...

Actually the bringing in any outside party only opens the door to running the department's reputation into the ground and allowing cops to be involved opens the door for the media to hear about the situation from their right-to-know laws. The fire service is a brotherhood, the Fire Chief and/or the Assistant Chief should have stopped the truck and handled the situation personally. I know he is running an incident, but when notified of the possible situation as the update states, the OIC should have identified this NEW potential liability needs to be handled immediately. Stop the truck over the radio, tell the guy you have a report of a mechanical issue with the truck that needs to be checked, please pull over, pass command, drive down the road an assess the situation first hand.

Being a former union rep, defending people who have been wrongly accused due to bad blood or personal grudges and going immediately to the cops is an mishandled issue by itself. Does anyone know if this guy is a diabetic? Many cops have killed a wrongly diagnosed drunk, while handcuffed and mishandling a situation just like this.

Rightly so, he may be under the influence, and you have a zero tolerance policy, but handling the situation internally would have been the better choice for the department as a whole. Now everyone on that department is a yahoo, beer guzzling drunk in the eyes of the public.... thats a damn shame.

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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on January 18, 2009 at 12:23pm

FETC:
The key to your reply is IF the fire department handles it INTERALLY.
That means taking the bull by the horns and dealing with it in an appropriate manner.
Because fire department members are witness to all kinds of inconsistent and erratic responses to what they see as "favorites", then they might very well call the cops, because they don't feel a fair internal effort will be made. And honestly, I can't blame them, because in their minds, the reputation of the department is already in the crapper from the "rumors" that guys are drinking and responding.
As a chief, I would have asked the person to submit to an alcohol saliva test. If he agrees and it registers, he is done. If he refuses, he is done. If he takes the test and passes, he is still on and knows at that point that he is under scrutiny and if there has been a problem, this will fix it or he will be caught.
I agree; the place to stop it is at the fire station and BEFORE it gets into the public eye.
Once it gets into the public eye, WE get the black eye.
Art