Ex-Band Manager Gets 4 Years For Rhode Island Club Fire

[DudeAsInCool]

Ex-Band Manager Gets 4 Years for R.I. Fire

Ex-band manager whose pyrotechnics caused a nightclub fire that killed 100 people was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison, drawing sobs and groans from victims' relatives who hoped to see the man serve more time behind bars.

Some were so angered by the sentence given to Daniel Biechele -- who could have received 10 years -- that they stormed out of the courtroom. One man yelled "Typical (expletive) Rhode Island."

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Source: LA Times

[CTC Command]

In West Warwick, some see an omission as an injustice

In the gray and drizzle of the cold afternoon, Dan DeFosse pulled his pickup up to where the front door of The Station nightclub once stood and got out. He had the place to himself.

A dozen miles away in Providence, a prosecutor was arguing before a judge why Daniel M. Biechele should go to prison for his role in the fire here that killed 100 people, many of them trapped inside as the club burned to the ground.

DeFosse, a landscaper, walked to the cluttered garden of crosses that for three years has served as a communal gravestone and picked up a muddy snapshot of a girl that had blown from a memorial to the one for his friend Skot Greene. He wiped the mud off the picture onto his jeans and placed the picture in its rightful place.

A wrong is being committed in that courtroom, DeFosse said, speaking of Biechele's sentencing.

"I don't think it's fair they hold him responsible for everything that happened here," said DeFosse, who lives in town. "What about the fire marshal [Denis P. Larocque]?" He was the town employee who "was supposed to inspect the place." Had Larocque determined that the flammable foam on the club walls being used as soundproofing was dangerous and ordered it removed "that would have taken care of it and none of this would have ever happened."

It was the refrain heard around West Warwick yesterday as the courtroom drama in Providence was televised around the country. Many longtime West Warwick residents spoke of unfairness -- of an omission of justice -- playing out in The Station fire prosecution.

Biechele, the man who set off the pyrotechnics for the rock band Great White, which ignited the soundproofing foam, was being held up for the sins of others, they said. Larocque, the town's former fire marshal had inspected The Station at least three times before the fire but never noted the highly flammable foam in his reports. He was never indicted.

As a public employee, Larocque enjoys a form of immunity. Unless there is evidence of malice or bad faith, public employees can't be held criminally responsible...

Read the rest here.

[DudeAsInCool]

I kind of find it hard to believe that one person alone is responsible for the tragedy...

[CTC Command]

Not only that. Biechele is the only that was charged who has shown ANY remorse. Everyone else was either not indicted, has plead "not guilty" or tried to have the entire case dismissed. This wasn't his club. He didn't sell flammable insulation to anyone, passing it off as material that is code, or ignored the crap nailed to walls and ceilings while rubberstamping a nightclub safe as milk. But he did push the button that started the fire. So he plead guilty, wrote letters to everyone's family, and is obviously going through hell personally trying to come to terms with this. Not only that, but in most instances, people who are charged in cases like this just get community service, if anything (see this article "For punishment, Station fire judge has no precedent").

I knew people who died in that fire. The person mentioned in the last article I posted, Skot Green, did every single one of my tattoos (you tend to get close to someone you pay to inflict THAT much pain on you, lol). But sending Biechele to jail for 4 years isn't going to bring my friend Skot or the other 99 people back. I would rather see the incompetent assholes who sold the insulation, put in their club, and failed to inspect it for safety, forfeit a chunk of their lives instead.

The other thing. The Station, or where it was, is about 3 miles away from my house. Everytime there is ANYTHING to do with this case, frikking asshole CNN and ABC and FOX have their retarded news trucks with the booms and the lights set up, just waiting for someone to come by the memorials set up there so they can descend like fucking vampires on them. Makes me sick every time I see those trucks. And mad too.

[Lord_of_the_Dense]

I think of Biechele being the most responsible one yet, and it really wasn't even his fault. The families will say what they want to say. No set amount of time is good enough for thier loss. If they don't like the justice system, they can live someplace else. When it's working fine, there's no problem (and no praise). Lose a family member and all hell breaks loose.

Accidents happen.