OfficerBlueNew York, NY – A New York Police Department (NYPD) sergeant is under investigation after outrage over his decision to run into a burning building and carry out an elderly woman with dementia.
The incident started last Friday when NYPD officers responded to a fire at a Rockaway Beach apartment building, according to New York Post.
The officers went up to the 12th floor, knocking on doors to evacuate residents.
When they got to the apartment of 91-year-old Ethel Davis, Davis’ daughter says she begged Sergeant Timothy Brovakos to leave her mother because it was a fireproof apartment.
Sergeants Benevolent Association lawyer Andrew Quinn disputed that account and says that Davis’ daughter said, “You can’t leave my mother, she’ll burn.”
When Sergeant Brovakos entered the apartment, it was filling up with smoke. The sergeant picked up Davis and carried her out.
While the sergeant was carrying her, he collapsed just short of the stairwell.
Quinn said that the other officers tried to carry Sergeant Brovakos out, but he went back for Davis.
“The other officers said ‘don’t do it.’ And he goes anyway,” Quinn told the New York Post. “Then he gets her and picks her up with another officer and carries her down to the ninth floor.”
Davis later died of smoke inhalation.
The Post reported that unnamed sources with the fire department blamed the police for Davis’ death, and so does her family.
“We did not order evacuations,” FDNY spokesman Jim Long told New York Post. “We were in contact with tenants via dispatch and directing them to shelter in place and then instructed firefighters to go to their locations.”
Quinn disagreed.
“Ask the fire officials where the f–k they were, because they weren’t on the goddamned 12th floor. It was all NYPD,” Quin told The Post. “There were firefighters there but they weren’t on the 12th floor knocking on doors. That was the cops.”
NYPD has now launched a major investigation into the incident after Sergeant Brovakos was blamed for Davis’ death, noting that NYPD policies say that officers should “avoid entering any building that is on fire.”
Davis’ family has hired lawyer Peter S. Thomas who told The Post, “a real hero would have closed the door and stayed with these tenants to make sure they were safe, not force them into a dangerous circumstance.”