Bad Investigation or Political Interference?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Glenn Corbett on August 15, 2008 at 7:23pm

Great to hear from you, Charlie. It's been a few years.....hope all is well.

Permalink Reply by Todd McKee on August 15, 2008 at 7:56pm

Welcome Charlie and I am glad your on here. Todd McKee

Permalink Reply by Tom McConaughy on August 15, 2008 at 9:40pm

Charles,



You asked a great question and I can tell you that the investigation did have many influences. Lack of competent and well equipped investigators was not the problem. Many investigators, including those sent from the NFPA, office of the KY Governor, KY State Fire Marshal, KY State Police and several litigators, just to name a few, along with a host of "electrical experts" all did there best to find an accurate conclusion. I do believe some of them, not all, were definitely influenced by agendas.



Why do you bulldoze a building so soon after a disastrous fire? This fire started an enormous political wave that included loss off jobs for some state employees. In my opinion some politicians, officials and other parties tried to make D*** Schilling a scapegoat. Putting D*** in jail would have been a big victory for the state. I knew D***, and I will not present him as an angel, but he's no murderer either. D*** won his trial because he had a recent permit from the local fire marshal. While there were several Arson Investigators from KYSP, arson did not appear to be the focus. Some reports questioned D***'s relationship with local officials. Several visited the BHSC occasionally in the evening hours and were given VIP type hospitality. This created a sour tone with in the public.



One investigative report mentioned a lack of cooperation from a local contractor. Why was there no follow up? In an unrelated deposition an investigator stopped the tape just as the employee began recalling the name of the company whose workers at the BHSC were laughing after a "loud explosion" I believe to be the day of the fire. I would think this type of information would be of great interest!



The zebra room was wired absent of aluminum wiring, per the local contractor. He was also a volunteer fireman who helped fight the fire. Testimony changed dramatically with time. One key witness, who changed her mind on major details, testified that her memory of the events were much clearer over five years removed than it was within 1 week of the fire.



When there is an agenda and people are willing to manipulate events success will be limited at best.

Tom

Permalink Reply by Todd McKee on August 15, 2008 at 9:54pm

Tom: Thank you for your comments and they are very valuable and interesting. May I have ask if you have anything to support the data of the Zebra Room not having aluminum wiring. Feel free to email me at toddcmckee@hazmatohio.com or call me. Thank you Todd

Permalink Reply by Tom McConaughy on August 15, 2008 at 10:13pm

Hi Todd;

Thank you for your response. There is documentation to support my comments or I would not write them on a site that I respect on such a serious topic. I would prefer our communication to be limited to this site at this time so Dave and Glenn can determine when and how to ibring new information to the group. I'll do my best help where I can until then.

Tom

Permalink Reply by Todd McKee on August 15, 2008 at 10:22pm

I understand I asked to be contacted because I am finding that most would rather not post it on here, so I try to give them a more private place. I agree everything should be left to this site. I feel you are serious about this and I am glad you are. I hope that you are able to share the documents for all of us to review, of course when the site is ready for them. Thanks Todd

Permalink Reply by Paul Dove on September 1, 2008 at 10:29am

After reviewing and dissecting the official documented summary report and while not having access (to date) to other official reports I would like to review, I have completed my analysis regarding the fire origin and spread. I have documented areas needing further exploration using current investigation technologies not available historically.

I also have some questions with regards to the documented cause of the fire, theory dismissals and witness interview accounting. I will address these issues during the appropriate time and form as this inquiry proceeds.

While in total agreement with others who remain open minded as to the historical investigation and the implications presented, we all need to take into account the period in time and technologies available to those qualified investigators.

Permalink Reply by Mark Stigers on September 24, 2008 at 7:49am

Paul, are you referring to the "Report to the Governor" that was submitted September 16, 1977? While this is the only official report I have seen, I have read several stories and studied this at the National Fire Academy, but what strikes me a odd is that in the report there is a 43 page section on "Compensation" (I-1) that I have always felt was not the job of the investigators and others involved to concern themselves with at the time. Thats a job for lawyers after all the facts are found, yes they can obviously start the ground work for the multitude of lawsuits that will be filed as a result, but I see no reason to include that information in an investigation report.

Permalink Reply by Todd McKee on September 26, 2008 at 3:57pm

I agree with the both of you.

Permalink Reply by Paul Dove on September 28, 2008 at 4:29pm

Mark:

In follow-up, I've reviewed the NFPA and NBS reports. I now have the additional Report to Governor and other documents posted by a member on the forum. In brief review of the Report to Governor, I would strongly agree that the compensation section (I) would not be necessary or should be part of a official C & O report as previously mentioned but I also believe that this specific report was and should be viewed as a political post incident analysis report. I believe it was generated by the Governor’s Special Counsel Office and meant to be “complete aspects” report of the entire process including legal, political and accountability issues that the Governor initially requested (in efforts to not be surprised or blind-sided) before the litigators would become involved. This is documented in statements from the KSP and KFMO personnel.

With regards to the official reporting by actual C & O investigators and later extracted into to the Report to Governor, this report contains extracted cause and origin information contained in the NFPA and NBS separate reporting documents generated after the initial investigation. It is also outlined the methodology of the C & O investigation.

In my opinion, the Report to the Governor is just an overview of all associated reports and additional information to allow for the expected extensive discussions on what the state's responsibilities were and what should be expected during the aftermath. The analysis and methodology indicated in this report would have been in line with NFPA 921 and is similar to today's expected practices relating to investigation with the only exception to newer technology and modeling not available at that time.

Permalink Reply by Tom McConaughy on September 29, 2008 at 9:33am

Paul,


Very interesting, I think you described the report very accurately.

Here's a report made by the Chief Muench of Southgate, KY giving his opion of the cause of the 1970 BHSC fire. I'm not suggesting a correlation, but I found it very interesting.


Tom

Attachments:

• BH CAUSE OF 1ST FIRE.pdf, 545 KB

Permalink Reply by Mark Stigers on September 29, 2008 at 12:40pm

Thanks Paul for the reply. I often wondered why a fire of this magnatude had such a poor report, but this is all I ever saw. I knew there had to be more out there somewhere but I did not have access to them. Now that report makes a whole lot more sense.

Looking forward to more on this fire.

Mark

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