Man claims to have witnessed firefighter, homeless confrontation
Mar 17, 2014, 3:10 PM | Updated: 6:04 pm
A man who claims to have been a witness to the altercation allegedly involving two Seattle firefighters, a female companion, and two homeless men in Pioneer Square says the incident was disgusting and not a fair fight.
“There were only three people in that park who wanted to fight and they were certainly taking it out on people who had no interest in fighting,” said Andrew, a man who tells KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson he was at the scene.
Andrew tells Monson he didn’t see how the incident began but he did see two large men and a woman getting into it with a homeless man in the area. Andrew says when the first homeless man tried to hide under a concrete slab, the party’s attention transferred to another homeless man with a knee brace and a bamboo cane.
“The lady they were with started grabbing on his blanket and trying to rip his blanket away,” Andrew says.
KING 5 reports both firefighters are currently on disability. But Andrew says from his vantage point it looked like they were in fine physical form.
“They looked in tip top shape. They were going after anyone they could. I guess if one of them is on disability, I’d like to know what kind of disability because it certainly didn’t appear to be physical in any way.”
Andrew wanted to clarify he did not see what sparked the initial attack.
“I don’t know if the homeless man provoked them in any way, but from what I saw, he had no interest in any physical altercation, and they were aware of that after they started beating him. They knew he was not interested in fighting.”
He adds that observing the incident, it was clear that the people involved in the conflict were not equally matched.
“This was two people who were probably north of 250, strong, in good shape, beating on a little homeless guy and the other guy had a knee brace and a wooden cane.”
“We all know that members of firefighter unions are going to be a lot better represented in a court of law than a homeless person who probably has mental or substance abuse issues, but hopefully they have to pay for what they did,” he says.
