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This incident started as an emergency response to a gas leak at a building on Treurenberg in Brussels.
A low-pressure gas pipe was reportedly damaged by a contractor during construction work. While Firefighters and gas utility employees were operating, several explosions occurred inside the building at around 1330, apparently caused by accumulated gas. According to the gas company, the blasts did not occur at the site of the damaged pipe itself, but inside the building, where gas had accumulated.
A federal judge has given the families of three Baltimore Firefighters who died in the Line of Duty in 2022 another chance in their yearslong legal battle with the city.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox allowed the families of Baltimore City Lt. Paul Butrim, Lt. Kelsey Sadler and EMT/Firefighter Kenny Lacayo to file an amended complaint against the city this week, giving them another opportunity to pursue claims of negligence, wrongful death and state-created danger.
The decision comes six months after Maddox dismissed their original complaint and more than a year after the dismissal of their first federal lawsuit against the city, also alleging state-created danger.
Ken Berman, an attorney representing the families, said that though the case has endured multiple dismissals, they plan to “stay the course” until the families get justice. He said the case is complex and stems from years of city neglect.
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A lot of work has gone into uncovering information, Berman said, which has strengthened the case.The 3 Firefighters were killed fighting that fire at a vacant row home on Stricker Street in January 2022. The burning building, located in the city’s Mount Clare neighborhood, partially collapsed as fire personnel fought the fire from the inside of the structure.
Firefighter/EMT John McMaster, who was seriously injured in the fire, is also named as a plaintiff in the suit.
In December, James Edwin Barnett, of Baltimore, was indicted on arson and homicide charges in connection with the blaze. He has a trial scheduled for Oct. 2, according to Maryland court records.
A report ( linked below* ) which was compiled by a panel of emergency officials and released later that year, found that the city lacked policies on vacant buildings at the time of the fire and that a Battalion Chief on the scene had been overloaded with duties, leading him to miss critical information on busy radio channels. The report’s release led to the resignation of then-Fire Chief Niles Ford.
The families’ amended complaint, which was officially filed the day that Maddox gave his order, alleges that the city knowingly sent firefighters into “structurally compromised homes” without the firefighters’ knowledge, increasing their risk of death and “flouting federal law designed to protect” them.
It alleges the city had discontinued a program designed to ensure firefighters wouldn’t be ordered to enter structurally compromised buildings. It alleges the city then covered up the discontinuation.
The complaint also states that at the time of the fire, the city was engaged in a “profit-sharing scheme,” ensuring that “certain unsafe properties (including 205 Stricker St.) in certain blighted neighborhoods would not be demolished or marked as structurally compromised.”
“The City chose corruption over the Constitution and revenue over individual rights at all relevant times,” the complaint states.
The city has argued that the families’ attempts “to convert this tragic work-place accident into a constitutional case” continue to fall flat because the plaintiffs aren’t able to “plausibly allege” that the city intended the deaths of its employees and that the city fraudulently induced employees into circumstances that led to injury.
Maddox dismissed the families’ original complaint in February, ruling that the families failed to allege that the city acted to purposely put the firefighters in danger. But in his ruling this week, Maddox said the plaintiffs’ attachment of several affidavits and their citation in a proposed amended complaint adequately addressed the issue.
Berman said the families were pleased with Maddox’s decision. “This is the first step,” he said, adding that he’s believed in the case from the beginning. Berman said that the city has refused to meet with them and that he’s “a bit distressed” by the city’s decision to fight the case at every stage.
