What’s News for May 29
CONEY ISLAND — A Fire Department union official says poor communication between police and firefighters was a factor in a police officer’s death at a Brooklyn fire. Richard Alles of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association tells WNYC that firefighters didn’t initially know that two police officers were trapped at the fire scene. Officers Dennis Guerra and Rosa Rodriguez became trapped in the fire at a Coney Island public housing complex and Guerra died three days later. Rodriguez was released from the hospital last week and a 16-year-old has been charged with murder. Alles said Guerra could have survived if firefighters had known he was on the fire floor. WNYC said an NYPD spokesman had no comment on Alles’ remarks. FDNY spokesman Francis Gribbon called them “pure speculation.” (AP)
_______
BOROUGHWIDE — U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Brooklyn-Manhattan) was one of several elected officials praising a recent agreement allowing treasured Jewish archives that U.S. troops recovered from Saddam Hussein’s basement during the Iraq War to remain in the U.S. indefinitely. The items, including thousands of books, historical documents and religious materials that were either seized from the Jewish community by the Iraqi government over the decades or left behind when Jews fled Iraq, were found in Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters by U.S. forces in 2003. The items, which were found under four feet of water in the basement, were transported to America for restoration and safekeeping.