A D.C. fire lieutenant and a firefighter were put on administrative leave Thursday as city authorities investigate why a man who suffered a fatal heart attack outside a Northeast Washington firehouse didn’t get care, according to officials familiar with the case. 
 
 The move comes one day after the lieutenant — identified by District officials as Kellene Davis — met with the fire department’s internal affairs division. Officials declined to say what Davis, 51, said at the meeting, and she could not be reached for comment. 
 
 But in a letter to city Fire Chief Kenneth B. Ellerbe, Davis, a 28-year veteran, said a firefighter told her that someone had slipped and fallen across the street. She said she told the firefighter to get an address and that she would go help. But she said he never returned with the address and instead told her that an ambulance had already been dispatched. It was unclear whether that firefighter is the one who was placed on administrative leave. 
 
 A fire department spokesman confirmed that the letter was sent to the chief by Davis. It was first reported by WTTG (Channel 5) on Thursday. 
 
 No action has been taken against a probationary firefighter who told people who sought help for the dying man that they had to call 911 before anyone could respond, although Davis said in her letter to the chief that she reprimanded that firefighter for not ringing the station alarm. Officials said that the firefighter properly told the lieutenant that people were seeking help and that the investigation now centers on why nothing was apparently done. Three fire department officials said that the probationary firefighter was moved to Truck 11, near Brightwood Park, and responded to a fire Wednesday night. 
 
 The fatal incident occurred Saturday when 77-year-old Medric Cecil Mills Jr., who had worked for the District more than four decades, collapsed outside a computer store at a strip mall across the street from the fire station on Rhode Island Avenue in the Brookland neighborhood. 
 
 His daughter, Marie Mills, said bystanders called 911 but also rushed to the station and banged on the door seeking help. But Mills said a firefighter told them that no one could respond until someone called 911 and they were dispatched. “There’s nothing I can do if my lieutenant doesn’t tell me to go,” he reportedly said, according to Marie Mills. 
 
 She said that a D.C. police officer flagged down a passing ambulance and that her father was treated about 15 minutes after he collapsed. He died later that afternoon at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. 
 
 The incident and subsequent inquiry come as the city investigates another case in which a man died after receiving questionable care, city officials said. That incident occurred Jan. 10 on 16th Street NW when 39-year-old Jose Santos Ruiz Perez collapsed in front of his apartment. 
 
 D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) said Perez’s relatives and authorities told him that a District police officer waved off an ambulance heading toward Perez, who had been drinking. Graham said the officer woke Perez, escorted him into his apartment and put him on a couch and left. A relative found Ruiz dead five hours later, according to a D.C. police report. A cause of death has not been determined. 
 
 But fire officials offered a different version. Those officials said two firefighters evaluated Ruiz, who declined treatment, but failed to obtain the required forms relinquishing them of responsibility before leaving. There is no fire or police report on the first encounter. A District official said the matter remains under investigation. 
 
 In the Mills case, District officials, including the mayor, reached out to the family and called the case an unacceptable breach of the public trust. “There are no regulations or protocols that would have prevented [fire department] personnel on the scene from taking action to help Mr. Mills,” Paul A. Quander Jr., deputy mayor for public safety, said in a statement Thursday. “It’s hard to get your arms around how and why this happened.” ||||| Join the conversation on our Facebook page! Like us and tell us what stories matter to you. 
 
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 The lieutenant at the center of the controversy surrounding the death of Cecil Mills was interviewed by internal affairs Wednesday. 
 
 Kellene Davis commands Truck 15 and was the officer in charge when the 77-year-old collapsed in a strip mall across the street from the fire station. 
 
 Mills’ daughter, Marie, says no one from the station, located in the 1300 block of Rhode Island Avenue in Northeast D.C., would cross the street to help her father despite numerous pleas for assistance. 
 
 Davis was questioned for more than an hour and a half, and when she left headquarters, FOX 5 attempted to speak with her. 
 
 Instead of responding, Davis covered her face with a manila folder and climbed into the truck she commands. 
 
 Although the fire department has said nothing about the incident, Paul Quander, the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, said Tuesday the focus of the investigation is now on the lieutenant. 
 
 “We know we had a very new probationary employee at the facility and the first response is to ask a senior person, and we believe that was done,” said Quander. “The question now is what did that senior person say? What did that person do? Did they follow protocols and procedures?” 
 
 Last Saturday afternoon, Marie Mills was with her father when he suffered a massive heart attack in front of a computer store across the street from the fire station. 
 
 Despite numerous pleas for help, no one left the station to render first aid. 
 
 Mills was surprised to learn Lieutenant Davis has not been suspended. 
 
 "She is still riding a fire vehicle? And she wouldn't authorize somebody? She could have came to help," said Mills. 
 
 She also questioned the actions of the rookie firefighter who heard the cries for help. 
 
 "The rookie should have made a conscious decision as a human being,” she said. “He should have come to offer assistance. If he would have offered assistance, no matter the outcome, no matter what his job was, my family is the kind of family that would have stuck behind him.” 
 
 Cecil Mills was 77 years old and a lifelong resident of the District. He was still employed by the Department of Parks and Recreation at the time of his death. 
 
 "[Tuesday] evening I spoke with Mayor Gray,” said Mills. “He was sincere. Others who have called have not been as sincere and I appreciate how seriously he is taking this because it never should have happened.” 
 
 Ed Smith, president of the firefighters union issued a statement which reads: “This just shouldn't have happened. We need to find out why it did occur and make sure it never happens again. On behalf of the DC Firefighters Association, I offer Mr. Mills' family a sincere apology.” 
 
 In addition to the investigation into the actions of the members of Truck 15, the Office of Unified Communications is trying to learn why the initial dispatch sent an ambulance to the wrong quadrant of the city -- Northwest D.C. instead of Northeast D.C. 
 
 So far, no one has been suspended. ||||| Radios for federal firefighters and police officers failed during Monday’s mass shooting at Washington’s Navy Yard, according to union representatives for first responders. 
 
 
 
 Union officials said police and firefighters resorted to using their cellphones and radios from D.C.’s emergency responders to communicate with each other during the attack. 
 
 
 
 Anthony Meely, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police Naval District Washington (NDW) Labor Committee, said police officers who were first on the scene at the Navy Yard had trouble communicating with others in the force via their radios. 
 
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 Initially, officers found that their radios were working. But as they ventured deeper into the building where the shooting took place, their equipment stopped functioning.After the first shootout with the gunman, one officer found his radio’s battery was dead, while another officer could not receive a signal from his radio and was unable to call for help. That forced them to use an officer’s cellphone to call others outside the building, according to Meely.“They had to use their cellphone to just call out and tell them what's going on,” Meely said.Meely, who was on the scene at Navy Yard and took part in the search for a potential second shooter, said problems with their radios have been “a known issue” on the base with radio batteries not being able to hold charge and being unable to receive signals inside buildings.The union representative said he thought it was “sad” that police officers had to use a cellphone to call for help.“I think it's disgusting, unnecessary and sad, but what could they do if the radios weren't working? But that was the only way for them to call and get them some help,” Meely said.Firefighters were also having problems with their radio signals at the Navy Yard, according to one union official.Greg Russell, president of the National Capital Federal Firefighters, said his firefighters were on location setting up an incident command post a few doors down from where the shooting took place.“The incident commander from Naval District Washington was not able to communicate from his position inside the building to fire units outside of the building. He was not able to communicate with his subordinate units outside of the building,” Russell said.“He had to rely upon the radios that belong to the D.C. Fire Department. He could not deal directly with his own unit on Navy radios,” he said.A NDW spokesman said the base is undergoing a review of its physical security."At this time the NDW focus remains on healing as a Navy family and transitioning to normal operations at the Washington Navy Yard. The Secretary of the Navy has ordered a review of physical security and we will support it fully. Our biggest concern is our Navy family," said Ed Zeigler, NDW's director of public affairs.Public safety officers on military bases and other federal facilities have long complained about their radios, saying they cannot use them to communicate to each other during emergencies.Russell, who came down from Annapolis, Md., in response to the shooting, said he went to nearby Bolling Air Force Base and helped debrief fire fighters when they returned from the scene.He said the federal firefighters’ incident commander’s radio was not powerful enough to hit a transmission tower outside the building. “D.C. Fire, their radios worked appropriately and efficiently from the same building,” he said.Russell is calling for NDW officials responsible for the radio system to resign.Radio communications has been a persistent problem for public safety officials, hampering the responses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks as well as Hurricane Katrina.Emergency responders lobbied Congress successfully to authorize a $7 billion nationwide wireless network — which is not yet in operation— that could help improve radio communications during disasters.“The FCC will continue to monitor, evaluate and respond as needed to help ensure our nation's communications infrastructure works when people need it most. These are the times when Americans must be able to communicate with family, friends and emergency personnel,” said acting Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn in a speech on Tuesday.Security at the Navy Yard has come into question following revelations that the identified shooter, former Navy reservist Aaron Alexis, kept his security clearance despite mental health problems and gun-related arrests.The Pentagon has ordered military-wide reviews of base security and background checks in the wake of the shooting. In addition, several lawmakers on Capitol Hill already plan to hold hearings regarding the security clearance process that helped Alexis enter the base.
– A fire lieutenant and a firefighter are on administrative leave after a man suffered a heart attack across the street from their Washington, DC, firehouse on Saturday and no one at the station helped him; Medric Mills, 77, later died. Authorities are still investigating the situation, but the lieutenant wrote in a letter to DC's fire chief that a firefighter told her someone slipped and fell across the street, WTTG reports. She told him to get an address and she'd go to assist, but, she says, he never brought her an address; instead, she later found him and says he told her an ambulance had been dispatched. Both are currently on desk duty. As for the probationary firefighter who told bystanders asking for help that they had to call 911 before rescuers could respond, he was reprimanded for not ringing the station alarm, but officials say he followed procedure by telling the lieutenant about the situation, the Washington Post reports. It's not yet clear why no assistance was then given, but the probationary firefighter was not placed on leave; he was transferred to another station. "We know we had a very new probationary employee at the facility and the first response is to ask a senior person, and we believe that was done," the deputy mayor for public safety tells WTTG. "The question now is what did that senior person say? What did that person do? Did they follow protocols and procedures?"