VIDEO - Kansas City Fire Chief Paul Berardi responded Sunday night to an article published by The Kansas City Star.
The article, headlined "Firefighters killed in alley shouldn’t have been there," touches on the Oct. 12 fatal fire that killed two Kansas City Fire Department firefighters.
John Mesh, 39, and Larry Leggio, 43, were killed during a two-alarm fire response on Independence Boulevard.
The Star reported a collapse zone was ordered minutes before the collapse happened. The collapse killed the two firefighters.
Berardi doesn't disagree something went wrong that night.
However, he also expressed criticism about the article since an investigation has not been completed yet. He also said the article placed blame on the victim. "It's obvious that something went wrong," Berardi said. "Two people died, two people got seriously injured. So for me to stand up here and say nothing went wrong...that would be wrong also. But to put blame on John and Larry is absolutely wrong." Berardi said it's his responsibility to help prevent what happened that October day occur again.
"To suggest that any person, or certainly Larry or John, were doing anything wrong, is just plain wrong in and of itself. Any blame or any responsibility - it lands on myself to be able to do an investigation and be able to determine, for John and Larry's sake, to make sure this doesn't happen again."