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12 Arrests as NY Firefighters Protest Curbs on Search for Bodies
Emotions boiled over New York Friday as firefighters protesting restrictions to their search for colleagues lost in the rubble of the World Trade Center scuffled with police, leading to 12 arrests.
Hundreds of firefighters broke down barricades around the site, known as "Ground Zero" since the devastating terror attack of September 11, and five police officers were injured in the scuffles.
Those arrested included a retired fire captain, a fire marshal and three union leaders, and they face charges of assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said he sympathized with the firefighters who lost 347 comrades in the attack but that "the kind of conduct displayed today is unacceptable."
He added: "No matter how bad you feel... you don't get to punch New York City police officers. For that you go to jail."
The incident prompted Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen to make a public apology to the five injured police officers, two with black eyes and three with neck and back injuries.
"I want to apologize to those five police officers. I think of them as brothers in this tragedy from day one," he said at a press conference attended by Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
Firefighters' union representatives said they regretted that police officers were injured but claimed that they were not looking for confrontation, and that police had provoked the clashes.
"We did not want to have an altercation with the other heroes (the police).
We wanted a peaceful march," one said.
The New York police and fire departments have been staunch comrades-in-arms in the wake of the attack on the twin towers, and the confrontation between uniformed services, with some firefighters being taken away in handcuffs, left witnesses gaping.
Giuliani said the decision to curb the recovery effort was made at the repeated advice of safety experts, who said the site was becoming increasingly dangerous as larger equipment was deployed, and that more lives could be lost.
"I'm not going to have that on my conscience," he said.
The number of search and recovery workers at the site will be reduced to 75 -- 25 each from the firefighting, police and port authority police services -- Ken Holden of the Department of Design and Construction told a press conference on Friday.
But the unions said their safety officials were not consulted in the decision.
What began as a heroic rescue mission in which tens of thousands of survivors came out alive soon shifted to the grisly task of unearthing bodies from the smoking ruins.
The search and recovery workers found themselves at cross purposes with a round-the-clock cleanup operation in which up to 10,000 tonnes of debris has been removed each day.
Fewer than 500 bodies have been identified, with nearly 4,000 victims still listed as missing, according to police figures on Thursday, but bodies are still being found.
"Just 24 or 48 hours ago they found a firefighter's body intact," Peter Gorman of the Uniformed Firefighters Association told reporters.
The UFA estimates that more than 265 firefighters remain lost in the rubble.
Holden said the recovery teams would now "have spotters spread throughout the site," he said. "When the spotters find human remains that require the excavation to stop ... the excavators will back off, and the firefighters and the policemen who are in the safe areas will then come onto the site (and) do their searches."
Giuliani said: "We have stretched the recovery to points beyond people advising me that we should stop," he said, noting that hundreds of search and recovery workers were at Ground Zero in the initial phase following the attack.
The UFA said the restrictions would derail "the department's dignified attempt to recover emergency workers who lost their lives."
Ground Zero has become "a full-time construction scoop and dump operation," the association said in a press statement. Gorman said Friday that "we don't find remains at the Fresh Kills," the landfill where the debris is taken, and where some body parts have been found.
Firefighters requesting anonymity said they suspected the decision was motivated by financial concerns, with overtime pay costing the city millions of dollars since the destruction of the two 110-story World Trade Center towers and several other buildings.
But Giuliani firmly rejected the allegations.
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