I was kind of wondering what the fuck was going on in New York City with all the crane collapses happening recently.
According to the NY Times
Unbelievable! They should hang him from a crane as an example. I’m going to be in NYC in a couple of weeks and I figured I’d keep an eye out for cranes, even though I doubt you can run out of the way in time.
Thanks for the link, Darryl. I’ve sent it on to my husband who is a construction safety officer at a multinational construction company. I’m sure he and his company will enjoy it - filed under “How not to do business.” 
I don’t see reckless endangerment of human life or manslaughter or something like that on this guy’s list of charges. Too bad.
Egads…
Well, there goes any hope that the corruption in the department had been isolated to the inspector who had been charged and fired back in March. At this point, I imagine they will have to go through the whole department on a full-blown witch hunt.
I hope that anyone else in the department who had taken bribes is sweating bullets tonight.
And, of course, this is going to slow down the investigation as to what happened in the most recent crane collapse, dammit.
Featherlou - without a link between poor inspections, or an improperly licensed operator, and the collapse this past May, I don’t think that they can hit him with manslaughter. I don’t disagree that his actions have shown “depraved indifference” to risk to people and property - but without showing that his actions caused damage to people or property, I’m not sure they can call him on it. Alas.
Oh, good God. That’s just…amazing.
That certainly answers a lot of questions about recent events, doesn’t it?
In particular, the article says they’ve only got him on charges relating to his oversight of smaller Class C cranes. He does also oversee the big cranes, so there’s cause for suspicion.
Lots more questions than answers right now.
All the collapses? I thought it was like two?
It’s worse than that. IMNSHO the attitudes of leadership in an office, or even a department, will affect the attitudes of others within that department. So, given these two facts: The inspector who had been overseeing the crane that collapsed back in March has been arrested for fraud related to that crane and fired for it, and that the department head is now being arrested for fraud related to anything related to cranes; I’m going to have to be convinced, through a long, and hostile, investigation of the whole department that there aren’t other inspectors who have done similar things.
And, frankly, if there are any more inspectors in the department who have been fudging things - it’s something I’d hold this department head morally accountable for, for having acted to create a department culture where such acts were condoned. I have no idea whether he could be held legally accountable. But that doesn’t change the moral picture, in my eyes.
bouv, yes, there have been only two crane collapses. But having them both happen in NYC, and within 90 days of each other, when I can’t think of any other crane collapses across the nation during the past several years must be investigated as a potential indicator of a serious local problem. Add to that the pattern of corruption in the department of the city government that oversees these things, and I think it’s fair to assume that there’s a serious problem, unless further investigation can prove otherwise.
ETA: What I mean is that under those circumstances, I’m willing to accept referencing a chain or pattern of only two events as “all the crane collapses.”
I see an episode of Law and Order coming…
Bribery, in NYC? :eek: I am shocked, shocked I tell you…
In other news, the sun rose in the East.
I guess he’ll never reach great heights.
He’ll be craning his neck to get out of this hole.
Again, speaking from the perspective of living with someone working in this industry, one collapse is shocking and sends ripples (of firings) through a company - two collapses is “put a company out of business” level of bad. These are things that should never happen.
Otaku, I told my husband about this, and his first response was, “Criminal negligence causing death.” We have different laws in Alberta than New York, of course, but OSHA in the US takes construction safety very seriously, too. I’ll see if Jim wants to come in and address this today.
Plus there’s nothing in US law preventing the families of victims from filing a civil suit against the man (and against any entity with the slightest legal tie to the collapses :rolleyes:). In fact, I’d be very surprised if that didn’t happen.
I had no idea that money could be made on not inspecting cranes.
On a completely unrelated note, everytime I see a big old crane on top of a skyscraper, two thoughts go through my mind:
a) There’d be no way in hell I’d work construction
b) How the hell did they get the crane up there? I guess they disassemble it and take it up in pieces…?
Why not? Plenty of money has been made by not growing food.
a) It’s not so bad - just be aware of what’s around. And wear your hard hat.
b) They’re almost self-assembling. It’s a really cool process - check it out!
I’m not too interested in working construction, but I’m REALLY not interested in being a crane operator. They make seriously good money, but they climb up into that crane in the morning, they spend all day in a cramped, high up space, then they come down at the end of their shift. And sometimes they die because some asshole was taking bribes.
Tower cranes always come in pieces. They actually assemble themselves. The only hard part would be getting the top piece up to the top of the building; after that, the crane can pick up tower segments and add them to itself.
They ought to require the crane inspectors to go up to the top of a different crane every week. Then they’d be sure the cranes were safe.