Four volunteer firefighters in Blair County are facing charges after allegedly using a personal cell phone to report false emergencies.
All four men were new volunteers and in training at the Kittaning Trail Fire Department.
“It was disturbing to do that knowing everyone put their life at risk responding to those calls,” said Logan Township Police Officer Matt Massaro. “We understand that’s our job but there’s a time and place for that for an actual call not to be put up for somebody’s joy of riding on a fire truck.
Police found Dustin Beckwith, Aric Beckwith, Daniel Johnson, and Edward Perino responsible for those 911 calls, a number of them traced to the Kittaning Trail Fire Department parking lot.
Dozens of emergency responders responded to those five, false incidents that occurred between January and March of this year.
“The number previously released was 99 counts on one of the calls, in the fifties for the others,” explained Jeff Blake, the President of the Logan Township Fire Department. “Those are people that are put in danger. Those people have families, they have lives, they have jobs. We accept that risk freely as does any emergency responder but we have about zero tolerance for this kind of danger.”
Police say they reported down wires, a mudslide and fires.
Police have charged all four men with criminal use of communications, false alarms to agencies of public safety, recklessly endangering another person, false reports to law enforcement and criminal conspiracy.
“It’s very disappointing, very saddened to be here today to even have to announce these arrests,” said Logan Township Police Chief Tim Mercer. “The only fortunate thing is that nobody was injured. Nobody from the public was struck by a piece emergency equipment or none of the emergency responders were involved were involved in any kind of accident.”
All of the defendants were issued an immediate 6 month suspension from the department with no membership privileges. If convicted, they would not be allowed to rejoin the force.
