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Lois Henry: 4th celebrants lose their minds, fireworks should be banned
| Saturday, Jul 5 2008 4:24 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Jul 7 2008 9:30 AM
I can come up with a number of words to describe what I saw riding along with one of the special fireworks enforcement teams in southwest Bakersfield on the Fourth of July.
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The Bakersfield Fire and Police Forth of July illegal fireworks operation Friday night was temporarily halted when the BPD received a call of an armed robbery of a fireworks stand in southwest Bakersfield. Bakersfield Fire engineer Kevin Johnson, left, watches the police activity while the search an apartment complex for an armed robbery suspect on Ashe Road.
A Bakersfield police officer confiscates illegal fireworks from this vehicle while Bakersfield Fire Department arson investigator Ed Watts, left, holds a flashlight on July 4th.
July 4th Bakersfield Fire Department arson investigator Ed Watts, center, finds illegal fireworks at this home in southwest Bakersfield with the help of firefighters and Bakersfield Police officers. Several illegal fireworks were taken in as evidence.
Bakersfield Fire Department arson investigator Ed Watts, left, drives past legal fireworks on the evening of July 4th in search of illegal fireworks which they found plenty of.
But it boiled down to these three: OUT OF CONTROL.
Ordinary people of all walks of life had clearly lost their minds.
The air was filled with explosions and smoke. Some fireworks went off like tracer rounds screeching toward the stars, others were rockets that shot up and deployed explosives dangling from little parachutes wafting down over shake-shingled roofs, blasting as they fell. All of it was mixed in with the so-called “safe and sane” stuff popping and showering sparks on nearly every street. And we were only in one small corner of the city.
Effectively policing the illegal stuff was near to impossible.
Between the city and county there were 30 teams of extra personnel all working on overtime chasing illegal fireworks all over the metro area.
These are dedicated, highly professional firefighters and law enforcement people. They know what to look for and, believe me, they get after it.
However — and I say this with all respect — it was like watching children trying to bail out the Titanic with sand pails. The problem is overwhelming.
We must ban all personal fireworks in the city and county.
“That way if anything goes off there’s no question, it’s illegal no matter what,” agreed Bakersfield Arson Investigator Captain Ed Watts, who I tagged along with Friday night.
I could only find one local politician who agreed with me about a ban. The rest cited tradition, nonprofits’ reliance on fireworks sales to raise money and not wanting to squelch people’s freedom as reasons for not supporting a ban.
That’s bull.
Our so-called leaders need get some spine, grow it, borrow it, tape a table leg to your back if you have to, but ban personal fireworks! It may not be popular with the boom-boom crowd but the alternative is just too costly.
Enforcement teams wrote more than 60 citations Friday night. That doesn’t include citations issued by regular engine crews.
Six people were arrested.
There were five fireworks-related fires, including two houses. One home lost the entire roof and suffered $95,000 damage.
An Oildale man may lose an eye.
And a 19-year-old girl had a gun shoved in her face by a man who stole the cash box at a fireworks booth. I saw her right after the robbery. She was traumatized, doubled over, crying and about to be sick. Happy 4th of July!
In response to the robbery, all the southwest enforcement teams plus dozens of BPD officers rushed to the scene to catch the loser, tying everyone up for more than an hour while illegal fireworks and who-knows-what kinds of crimes went untended.
Most people cited by the team I was with Friday night were cordial and accepting — even those who were dead drunk, which was most of them.
But at one of our first stops (not even 8:30 p.m.) a man rushed Watts, firefighter Kevin Johnson and BPD officer Nicolas Gospich as they searched a truck. The gentleman, attired in the classic wife beater t-shirt, yelled at them to get away from the truck.
I’m no criminal mastermind, but antagonizing men with guns and badges, especially when, yup, there were illegal fireworks in the truck, doesn’t seem like the smartest strategy.
That’s how OUT OF CONTROL (see above) the situation is.
As Watts and Gospich calmly and firmly dealt with Mr. Wife Beater, a neighbor came out to ask me what was going on. He shook his head and said they’d been shooting stuff off for two days. He and his wife had been to a barbecue/pool party but cut their visit short to come back and protect their house. A few streets away, we saw a man on his roof hosing it down. The neighbor didn’t want to give his name but said I could quote him on this: “They should just ban ’em. Ban ’em all.”
You said it, brother.
Lois Henry’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays.