Firefighters Set Upon

[Timmy]

This is a video of a rural fire brigade about 2 hours from my house being attacked by a group of underage, drunken, drug affected youths at a BMX event.

They received a call for a car fire amongst a crowd at this event, the call was received from a resident of a neighboring property (seen helping the firefighters). The event is not a registered event, it’s advertised on MySpace and BMX forums, they have no security, EMS, event management is very minimal and underage drinking is encouraged. Upon police arrival they turned on the officers which lead to multiple patrons being capsicum sprayed and several youths arrested. Every year the police and fire service are called to this event, the local council plans on banning the event next year.

As far as I know, a larrikin in the crowd made an offensive comment towards a firefighter then he turned the hose on him, the situation then escalated.

The event is aimed at BMX riders, it is unfortunate that a small number of the crowd acted in such a manner.

This type of attitude in recent times is being adopted in Australian youths. Every weekend there are multiple drunken, drug affected episodes were public members are severely injured or killed and emergency services workers turned on. It’s quiet sad.

Please feel free to leave a comment on youtube.

[Lucky~13]

ummm......... PD?

[Kaisu]

First of all - scene safety! I don't know how firefighters is Aussie land do it, but that crowd was loud and raucous and I would have gotten out of Dodge. Secondly, that firefighter committed battery when he turned the hose on the youth. I'm not sure what he hoped to accomplish by doing it. He caused that scene to escalate.

[MedicNorth]

That was deja vu, all right. We have had a couple of similar incidents stemming from youth parties with huge bonfires during burning bans. We get called to put out the fire, and the kids don't much appreciate having their fires snuffed. Some scuffles have resulted. Police are called and must be in attendance now before we will consider going in.

Opening up a hose at a drunken crowd might be tempting, but obviously is not a very clever thing to do. Obnoxious comments are something that simply have to be endured sometimes, especially when retaliation will likely make things worse.

[Asysin2leads]

If you guys do not know how to deal with a gaggle of rowdy teenagers, I have to say my respect for the machismo of both firemen and Australians has just dropped a peg. :-(

Here is an instructional video from the NYPD on how to deal with crowd issues.

[BushyFromOz]

First of all - scene safety! I don't know how firefighters is Aussie land do it, but that crowd was loud and raucous and I would have gotten out of Dodge. Secondly, that firefighter committed battery when he turned the hose on the youth. I'm not sure what he hoped to accomplish by doing it. He caused that scene to escalate.

No, the asshole who was assaulting the firefighter on the other side of the truck caused that scene to escalate, some little prick was trying to pinch gear of the truck on the other side, when approached by a smokie and told to leave, the smokie was set upon by some other assholes which brought the attention of a fire hose.

What this doesn't show is that the vast majority of that crowd was not there when the smokies arrived.