A Michigan mother is demanding answers and accountability after two firefighters gave an all-clear during a house fire that left both of her sons dead.
Flint Fire Chief Raymond Barton found that Sgt. Daniel Sniegocki and Michael Zlotek completed false reports about what occurred in the Memorial Day weekend fire. They claimed to have searched the second floor of the home, where the bodies of Zyaire Mitchell, 12, and Lamar Mitchell, 9, were discovered by two other firefighters a crucial six minutes later.
The chief recommended that the two white firefighters be fired, but one resigned, and the other was suspended for two weeks and received additional search-and-rescue training before returning to the job.
The boys’ mother, Crystal Cooper, took her fight for justice to the Flint City Council on Oct. 19. Cooper said she wants the firefighters who neglected to search for her sons to face criminal charges. They were later carried out of the home by two Black firefighters. Both boys died days later after being airlifted to Detroit Children’s Hospital.
“They committed a crime. For them to say they searched the house and they really didn’t search the house. For them to be suspended with pay, they (weren’t) dealt with properly,” Cooper told the city council.
Zyaire and Lamar were the only occupants in the home when the fire started on May 28. The boys were spending the weekend at their father’s home. A witness reported seeing smoke billowing from the side of the “residential structure,” and there was “possible entrapment,” according to 911 audio obtained by ABC12.
According to accounts at the city council meeting, someone reportedly walked into the fire station, where the smoke from the house could be seen about 200 feet away. Firefighters made the first call.
Fire marshals later determined that the blaze was caused by faulty wiring and the home did not have working fire detectors.
Sniegocki and Zlotek were the first ones to respond to the fire and called off other rescue efforts after performing an initial sweep of the home. They wrote in their reports that they entered the doorway of the bedroom where the children were found and used a thermal imaging camera to scan the room, and the “results were negative.”
However, the firefighter whose team found the boys after moving an air conditioning vent told the chief that “there was no way” Sniegocki and Zlotek “entered the bedroom where the victims were found and missed them.” The first boy was found “to the immediate left of the entrance” of the room and the other was on the bed.
Barton wrote in the department’s final investigative report that Sniegocki and Zlotek “knowingly made false reports in their Incident Write-ups. Their actions or inactions arise to Disobedience according to FFD Rules and Regulations, and as such, their actions have impeded, injured, and hindered the progress, welfare, efficiency, and good name of the department.”
Some Flint council members and community members believe that Flint mayor Sheldon Neeley overrode the chief’s recommendation to terminate the firefighters and that he has conspired with the city attorney to keep his involvement a secret.
Council members drilled Flint human resources director Eddie Smith about why the city did not terminate the firefighters. Smith told the council that the final decision was made before the personnel files made it to his desk. Councilman Eric Mays said the mayor was the only one who could’ve given the order.
Community activist Arthur Woodson claims the mayor tried to keep the incident under wraps until after election season. Cooper said an attorney she hired to help with the incident, a supporter of the mayor, asked her to do the same.
“Mr. Neely said it would be political suicide if he let out that two young Black boys were in this house and it was two white firefighters that gave an all-clear, and those young boys were in that house for six minutes, six minutes,” Woodson said.
Councilwoman Tonya Burns claims “the mayor and his people went after” the boys’ family on social media because the home did not have smoke detectors.
“This family deserves closure,” Burns said.
However, representatives for the city have denied that the mayor or any other elected official “affect the outcome of the investigation or the discipline imposed” in a statement to MLive-The Flint Journal.
The local firefighter union has accused the chief of making Sniegocki and Zlotek scapegoats for not going into the small room with extreme heat and low visibility, The Flint Journal reports.
Flint council members voted unanimously to launch an independent investigation into the fire and disciplinary actions against Sniegocki and Zlotek on Oct. 19.
“I can’t get my kids back. Nothing can bring them back,” Cooper said. “But I don’t want this to happen to nobody else.”
