Long Beach blaze Arch Mike DuRee is demography calefaction over accusations that he aria about his role in the after-effects of 9/11 and aggravating to canyon off a allotment of atom as a antique from Ground Zero.
The altercation has agitated not alone Continued Beach firefighters, but additionally the New York firefighters union. The New York accumulation is calling on DuRee to apologize, but DuRee said he never fabricated the comments.
DuRee reportedly fabricated the statements during the May 10 Heroes Regatta in Continued Beach, in which teams of badge and firefighters competed. The blaze arch was there to action a gift, a askance allotment of metal crafted into a bays emblazoned with "9-11-01" for the acceptable team.
According to an commodity about the accident and accounts from attendees, DuRee told a army the metal had been pulled from the accident of the Apple Trade Center and that he had formed alongside rescuers afterwards the attack.
"After 9/11, we (LBFD) were asked to accelerate a aggregation to advice with the chase at the Apple Trade Center. I was allotment of that team," DuRee was quoted in an commodity accounting by Rick Roberts for the sailing annual website sail-world.com and appear on May 11. Roberts is an agent of the yacht club. "We spent two weeks there activity through the rubble. I was accustomed to accumulate this allotment of askance metal as a remembrance."
DuRee has maintained that he was misquoted and he doesn't apperceive area the misinformation came from.
"I fabricated a point of adage that this bays is meant to betoken the cede of the men and women who gave their lives" on 9/11, DuRee said. "I did acquaint bodies that day, I can't bethink how continued after, but it was about 20 to 25 firefighters from Continued Beach that went aback to New York. We went to Ground Zero and went to funerals."
Bill Ardizzone, who was the Continued Beach Firefighters Abutment admi ral at the time and is now retired, gave a abundant annual of that cruise aftermost week.
He said a accumulation of 28 firefighters went to New York to present the abutment there with money aloft to abutment them in the after-effects of 9/11. That group, which included DuRee, absolved about the armpit of the Apple Trade Center, visited a firehouse that had been destroyed and abounding funerals over three canicule afore aerial home.
"Everybody in the apple capital to go aback there and advice those guys," Ardizzone said, but New York firefighters beneath the advice from added departments.
The regatta's director, Judy Meyer, corroborated the sail-world.com account. Meyer is a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, but said she was acclamation the regatta in her accommodation as the administrator of the race.
In a accounting account to the Register, she said DuRee told her the bays was an absolute allotment of metal from the Twin Towers, but afterwards a fflicted his adventure afterwards questions were aloft about it. She declared DuRee's accomplishments as "deception."
"Chief DuRee appear to anybody the agent of the bays and his accord in 9/11," Meyer said. "He stood afore all the participants and declared he was at 9/11, at the accumulation (of rubble), and the bays metal was a allotment of metal from 9/11."
Roberts, the article's author, beneath to animadversion for this story. As of Thursday morning his commodity remained on the Sail-World website with DuRee's quote.
Accounts of DuRee's statements in the article, and those by Meyer and added attendees with whom some firefighters had spoken, affronted LBFD firefighter Brogan Healy. He said DuRee was grandstanding.
"I'm still so taken aback that he had the acrimony to attach himself to this," Healy said.
Healy's career as a firefighter began in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and his aboriginal memories as a firefighter are of alive in the bits of the Twin Towers and accessory funerals of some of the 343 firefighters who died that day, Healy said.
"That's not activity to leave me," Healy said of the tragedy. "You don't aloof bandy that about for your own benefit."
Long Beach firefighter Kyle Vestermark said he too was afraid to apprehend about DuRee's declared statements at the regatta and that abounding in the administration acquainted the same.
"If you're the blaze arch of a above burghal city, you apperceive what's appropriate and amiss and you apperceive that's untouchable," Vestermark said. "People can't alike get their minds about this."
DuRee said that while his words were mischaracterized, anon afterwards the May regatta he beatific a letter to the LBFD agents to apologize to those who may accept been affronted afterwards talking with above New York firefighter Rich Brandt, now a agent arch in Continued Beach.
"When this became an affai r a day or two later, the aboriginal affair I did is ability out to Rich and say 'I'm awfully sorry,'" DuRee said. "I said 'Rich, I don't appetite any boldness to go to you,' and Rich said, 'You should put article out to the Blaze Administration and say aloof that.'… I'm abiding there are bodies that are still agitated about that, but the absoluteness is I've done aggregate I can to pay account to bodies who accept a absolute affiliation with New York and 9/11."
By all accounts, a Continued Beach firefighter who is a accomplished artisan fabricated the regatta bays from bounded atom metal.
"It was beautifully done by one of our firefighters," DuRee said of the trophy.
Rex Pritchard, admiral of the Continued Beach Firefighters Association, said he had heard about the conflict.
"If it ends up actuality accurate that he lied, it's actually arrant and there's no alibi for it," Pritchard said.
Long Beach Agent Burghal Manager Tom Modica said Wednesday that DuRee afresh brought the affair to the absorption of the Burghal Manager's Office afterwards inquiries by the Register, but that it wasn't a account for concern.
"From our perspective, this is article that happened at a clandestine accident on clandestine time," Modica said. "It looks to us to be a gross miscommunication."
But that may not be the aftermost burghal admiral will apprehend of it.
A adumbrative of the 10,000-member Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York wrote a letter addressed to Continued Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, and affected to DuRee and Burghal Manager Pat West, allurement that DuRee apologize. That letter is in the control of Continued Beach firefighters and was provided to the Register.
Garcia didn't acknowledgment buzz calls gluttonous animadversion Wednesday.
Vincent Speciale, a trustee of the New York accumulation who wrote the letter, accepted its actuality Wed nesday.
"At no time was Arch DuRee, nor any affiliate of the Continued Beach Blaze Administration accustomed admission to the Apple Trade Center site," Speciale says in the letter. "Mayor Garcia, it is my compassionate that Arch DuRee has back recanted these claims, but the accident has been done. It is an abuse to the bags of NYC Firefighters who spent hundreds of hours digging for animal charcoal at the Apple Trade Center site, to accept addition adulterate themselves as accepting been allotment of the aforementioned chase and rescue.
"It is an alike greater insult to accept this aforementioned person, a affiliate of the Blaze Administration no less, affirmation he'd been accustomed a allotment of metal to admire those absent at Ground Zero."
Contact the writer: 562-243-3419 or lwilliams@lbregister.com