DETROIT – Officials say the new "No Lights, No Sirens” policy is wrong and puts the public and firefighters at risk.
Now they’re planning to take their fight over the city’s new policy to court.
“It’s ridiculous. No lights. No sirens. Now they got priorities. Nobody even knows what this stuff is,” said Detroit Firefighters Union President Myke Nevin. “This is an invented system. This does not work in fire.”
The system he is talking about is the new city’s emergency response policy.
The new "No Lights, No Sirens" incident response policy allows fire crews to shut off lights and sirens on emergency vehicles during certain calls that are deemed less urgent.
The policy creates two types of calls, life threatening or code one, and non-life threatening or code two.
Local and state representatives teamed up with the firefighters' union Monday morning at a news conference. Their message was that the new policy is wrong.
“What we are saying to the city administration is that we need lights and sirens. The old system was working. This new system is not working and is failing us,” said Rep. Latanya Garrett.
The city of Detroit released the following statement in response:
"On Friday, October 12th, Detroit Fire Commissioner Eric Jones issued the attached official bulletin to all members of his department to respond to false and misleading information the Detroit Fire Fighters Association has been spreading about DFD's new policy on response codes. Most troubling is the latest false statement that EMS response codes have been downgraded (suggesting citizens are now receiving a slower response to medical emergencies). This allegation is completely untrue, as explained in the attached bulletin.
As Commissioner Jones promised, he reviewed the new policy after in had been in effect and could be assessed. As a result, last week he shared with the DFFA and the media that he was modifying the policy so that all home smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms (even without reports of human illness), as well as any report of a downed electrical wire, would receive a Code 1 response with lights and sirens.
This should have satisfied the DFFA's concerns. However with its leadership continuing to try and spread this false information through the news media, we ask that you take the time to read this bulletin and reach out to us with any questions before considering whether or not to pursue the DFFA's latest claims."