The NYPD is looking into a boozy brawl that broke out between a group of FDNY firefighters hours after the department’s annual Medal Day Ceremony last week. Surprisingly, no one was arrested and police are working to figure out why.
The chaos unfolded at Billy’s Bar near Yankee Stadium in the Bronx last Wednesday when someone shouted a racial slur at a Black firefighter, sources told the New York Daily News. That’s when members of the Bronx’s Rescue Company 3 and firemen with Ladder Company 49 and Engine Company 68 clashed, throwing punches left and right.
The melee got so raucous that bouncers had to use pepper spray to quell the chaos, sources said.
Officers interviewed the fireman targeted with the racial slur, who confirmed that a white fireman had called him the n-word. Sources told the newspaper that some the firefighters involved, who had been drinking, drove off after the fight and put the public at risk.
“A lot of guys at the precinct didn’t know why no arrests were made,” the source said. “These guys get drunk at a bar and start fighting like savages, and nothing happens to them … [police] should have arrested them, just because some got in their cars and drove away. They could have been drunk driving.”
The firefighters, who were still in uniform at the time, were feted at the FDNY’s medal day ceremony hours before the fight broke out.
“A few ended up in the hospital for cuts and bruises because the beat down was so bad,” one source told the New York Daily News.
The NYPD has since launched an internal probe into why not a single person was arrested that night. The city’s Department of Investigation is also looking into the incident and will review video from both inside and outside the bar.
A separate video taken outside the establishment shows a group of unsteady fireman exchanging choice words with one another. One of the men then pushes an officer who was trying to break up the fight.
“There are no formal complaints on file and the NYPD is currently looking into the incident,” NYPD spokesman Sgt. Brendan Ryan said in a statement. “Furthermore, responding officers arrived on scene and dispersed the crowd. Officers did not report hearing any slurs or encountering anyone with injuries.”
