AUSTIN — A person has been charged with homicide within the loss of life of veteran firefighter David Meyer.
Charles Inexperienced, 44, faces felony counts of homicide and aggravated arson. He ignited a rubbish bin that engulfed a residential storage in Austin, resulting in its roof collapsing on Meyer and inflicting deadly accidents, police stated.
Inexperienced, of Austin, was arrested Wednesday “inside hours of the fireplace” and a block away from the blaze, close to the place he lives, police stated. He’s due in court docket for a detention listening to Saturday.
Meyer and different firefighters had been working to clear the scene after extinguishing what gave the impression to be a minor hearth about 4 a.m. Wednesday within the 1200 block of North Pine Avenue, Hearth Division officers beforehand stated. After the roof collapsed, Meyer was rushed to Stroger Hospital, the place he was pronounced lifeless.
Meyer was a Hearth Division captain with 28 years on the job.
Neighbors advised Block Membership that storage fires have been a nuisance in latest months, significantly within the alley connecting North Pine Avenue with North Lengthy Avenue.
“For the final nearly yr there have been a pair garages which have been burning up,” stated Elio Alonso, who owns the two-story residence at 1239 N. Pine Ave. the place the storage hearth started. “We don’t know precisely what’s happening.”
Inexperienced has a felony file courting to the late Nineteen Nineties, together with an armed theft conviction in 2001, in response to court docket information.
Meyer was beforehand a lieutenant on truck 35 on the West Facet earlier than working his manner as much as captain with truck 29, additionally on the West Facet.
Meyer’s loss of life seems to be the primary on-duty fatality for the Hearth Division this yr. The division didn’t see any deaths final yr, in response to the Solar-Instances.
“He spent most of his profession on the West Facet, in busy firehouses, doing what he beloved to do,” Hearth Division Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt stated at a Wednesday morning press convention at Stroger. “It’s a kind of issues. We go to work every single day and we by no means know if we’re going to return residence. However that is what he beloved to do, and he was actually good at it.”
4 firefighters died within the line of obligation in 2023, the deadliest yr for the division since 1998.
Chicago firefighters gathered exterior Stroger Hospital’s emergency room Wednesday as they awaited Meyer’s procession from the hospital to the Cook dinner County Medical Examiner’s Workplace.
Mayor Brandon Johnson joined the meeting and stated Meyer “embodied what it meant to be a real Chicagoan and a public servant.”
“A hero, brave, courageous and daring,” Johnson stated. “We mourn collectively. The courageous men and women who serve this metropolis every single day for us, we don’t take that as a right.”
Meyer is survived by his spouse, three daughters and a son, Nance-Holt stated.
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