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Families of fallen firefighters file lawsuit against city alleging it withheld information

By Khiree Stewart

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    BALTIMORE (WBAL) — A new lawsuit has been filed related to the Stricker Street Fire, three years after a rowhome on fire collapsed and killed three firefighters.

The lawsuit claims the city intentionally withheld information that would have indicated the building was dangerous.

As their families continue to mourn, the lawsuit aims to hold the city accountable for their deaths.

Fire Lts. Kelsey Sadler and Paul Butrim and FirefighterEMT Kenny Lacayo were killed in a fire on South Stricker Street in 2022. Another firefighter, John John McMaster, suffered extensive injuries.

The lawsuit comes less than a month after a judge dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the victims’ families.

Lawyers for the families said the department abandoned a program that would be able to show firefighters if a building was dangerous, which they said was the case with the Stricker Street fire.

“They had a policy called Code X, where they were supposed to mark and indicate which buildings were abandoned or which buildings were not in condition that firefighters should go into if there were no individuals living in the building. They not only abandoned that program, but they purposely kept that information from the firefighters,” said Ken Berman, an attorney for the case. “The three firefighters who died and the fourth firefighter who was badly injured went into a building that they had no idea had not only had been condemned, not only was unsafe, but in fact, had a prior incident of a collapse where firefighters were injured.”

The city’s law department responded to the lawsuit, stating that, since it is ongoing litigation, it would reserve comment for the appropriate judicial forum.

“They expect their families, and the firefighters expect their brass, their supervisors, to provide and make it as safe as humanly possible in an extremely dangerous job here. They not only made it more dangerous — life-threatening — for the firefighters, but they basically hid that fact from them. So if, at a minimum, it leads to more transparency,” Berman said.

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