Blackhawk Fire Protection District (IL) Chief Gary Chapman has resigned from the fire department after he allegedly summoned volunteers to a fake fire, reports Quad-Cities Online.
Assistant chief Jerry Mader will serve as interim chief until the fire protection board meets next month and determines a plan to select a permanent replacement.
Milan Police Chief Shawn Johnson said that around 6:15 p.m. on May 6, a 911 dispatcher was contacted by Mr. Chapman, who said he had paged volunteer firefighters to a fake brush fire.
根据首席约翰逊,查普曼告诉dispatcher the fire was made-up to make firefighters available to help clean a building in the area that had once served as a haunted house run by the fire department.
约翰逊酋长说：“他在撒谎，让这些人露面去做一些工作……他不相信任何人会下来帮助”。”
He added that for the police dispatcher, it was “a little bit of shock that that would happen,” as she received two follow-up calls from a fireman and a local ambulance agency wanting more information.
A partial audio recording of the dispatcher’s phone line that night indicates that when a medic from the AMT ambulance service called asking about the brush fire, the dispatcher said, “no, that’s a practice. The fire department felt that was the only way he could get his crew in and he told me to disregard and he was going to be counting it out.”
The dispatcher is further heard assuring the medic, “there is absolutely no fire.”
Chief Johnson said, the next day, he was instructed by the three-member board for the fire protection district to launch an investigation into the false alarm.
On Wednesday, Chief Johnson called it a “poor decision” by Chapman and said, “We definitely kind of asked about if this was a general practice — has this happened before?” He said the department now believes this was an isolated occurrence.
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