Then the discipline slid further: The chief’s decision to terminate-he referred to it as a “recommendation” at the council meeting-was altered to a suspension “pending investigation,” he said, “through advisement” from Kim, Smith and City Administrator Clyde Edwards. Smith did not respond to a request for comment. Kim’s office directed requests for comment to the mayor. This, Smith later stated to the council, was due to a verbal directive from City Attorney William Kim. While he was in Arkansas for a family funeral, Barton said, he “received a call from director HR Eddie Smith” who relayed that the suspension without pay had been changed to suspension with pay. Then he said that the severity of consequences began to slide-and not always at his direction. Presswood did not respond to requests for comment.Īfter an investigation, the Chief found that “Sergeant Sniegocki and Firefighter Michael Zlotek have knowingly made false reports in their Incident Write-ups,” and that they “neglected to perform the tasks of completing a sweep of the second floor.”ĭuring questioning by some council members that same night, Chief Barton said that he had initially suspended the officers without pay. Fred Presswood, the firefighter whose team ultimately found the boys, later told Barton, according to the report. “There was no way that they entered the bedroom where the victims were found and missed them,” Lt. It wasn’t until seven minutes later-precious moments when a child is faced with smoke inhalation-that another crew of firefighters moved to vent the room and discovered a boy laying on the ground. “Upon finishing their first sweep of the second floor the team called off a second sweep,” it said. They were alerted to the blaze by a passerby, who said they could see smoke coming out of the house from near the fire station itself.Īs emergency personnel rushed to the scene, Sniegocki and Zlotek were the two-person team that performed the first sweep of the second floor of the two-story home, according to Barton’s report. When the fire broke out that Saturday morning in May, it was rank-and-file firefighters who first called 911. Spokespeople for Flint police and the Genesee County prosecuting attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ![]() Neither Sniegocki nor Zlotek could be reached for comment for this story. “At no point did undue influence by Mayor Neeley or any other elected official affect the outcome of the investigation or the discipline imposed,” she wrote. In a written statement, City of Flint spokesperson Caitie O’Neill said that the fire was a “tragedy” and that discipline given to officers was issued according to “normal procedures.” “I just would like a thorough investigation done with the firefighters,” Cooper told The Daily Beast. The move, Barton said at an October city council meeting, “split the department.” Now, the boys’ family is publicly demanding a criminal investigation into the firefighters’ actions-as well as a probe into what some city council members in the serially troubled Michigan city have said is a cover-up by the mayor, Democrat Sheldon Neeley. Instead, Sniegocki resigned-and Zlotek was allowed to return to work after completing a course in search and rescue. “Due to the nature of the incident in question, and the actions or lack of action possibly contributing to the loss of life of two victims, I have determined to terminate Sergeant Daniel Sniegocki and Michael Zlotek’s employment with the City of Flint Fire Department,” read a report dated July 22 and obtained by The Daily Beast.īut while Chief Raymond Barton made the determination to fire the firefighters, neither was ultimately dismissed. Weeks later, the city’s fire chief determined that two white firefighters initially tasked with canvassing the room in which the children were fatally injured lied about properly searching for victims. “He was just carin’ and lovin’, and if I was having a bad day, he would make me smile. “The last message that he sent me was, ‘You’re the best mom ever,’” their mother, Crystal Cooper, recalled in an interview, speaking about LaMar. ![]() ![]() The two Black boys were eventually discovered inside a second-floor room-in a house that was just a three-minute walk from the local fire station. In late May, 12-year-old Zy’Aire Mitchell and 9-year-old LaMar Mitchell died after briefly surviving a fire at their home in Flint, Michigan.
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