Donald Trump complains about Colorado Springs Fire Marshal’s ‘incompetence’ over capacity issue
The comments about Colorado Springs Fire Marshal Brett Lacey are at the beginning of the video to 1:41 and again at 50:58.
NOTE: Despite my great interest in the presidential campaign, to include spending too many hours watching both conventions, I try to keep the election coverage off of STATter911.com. But sometimes the story just comes to you in a way that’s hard to avoid. In this case, the election news is about the fire service. This is coverage about a problem Republican nominee Donald Trump was having yesterday (Friday) with Brett Lacey, Fire Marshal of the Colorado Springs Fire Department.
Corey Hutchins, The Colorado Independent:
Moments after Donald Trump took the stage on a college campus in Colorado Springs, he tore into what is really making America not so great.
“We have thousands of people in a room next door,” he said. “We have thousands of people trying to get in and we have a fire marshal that says ‘No, we can’t allow more people in.’”
Trump said it was “so unfair” to those who couldn’t make it inside the 1,500-capacity auditorium.
Watch response from Fire Marshal Brett Lacey via KKTV-TV
“They won’t let them in, and the reason they won’t let them in is because they don’t know what the hell they’re doing, that’s why,” Trump said to loud cheers. “That’s why our country has — hey, maybe they’re a Hillary person. Could that be the answer? Probably.”
Trump called it a “disgraceful situation,” adding, “this is the kind of thing we have in federal government also, by the way, and then you wonder why we’re going to hell. That’s why we’re going to hell.”
A long line of attendees trying to get in snaked down the sidewalk and around the building. Those who couldn’t get in filled a separate room on campus.
Toward the end of his hourlong speech, Trump again circled back and lit up the fire marshal.
“He’s probably a Democrat,” Trump said. “Probably a guy that doesn’t get it.”
He ended by saying he would go speak to the overflow crowd next door.
Following the speech, Brett Lacey, the fire marshal in question, said in an interview he is a registered voter but declined to say whether he is a member of a political party.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “We’re just here to do the job.”
“Now because of your fire marshal, who I am not a fan of, he’s probably a Democrat, probably a guy than doesn’t get it, I’m going to go into the other room and say hello to people that didn’t get your location,” Donald Trump said at the end of Friday’s speech.
At one point, Trump’s campaign tried to bring more people in, but police had to turn them away.
Lacey said crews evaluated the room on Thursday and decided about 1,500 people could safely fit in the room. Another thousand could be in the overflow room.
On Friday afternoon, Lacey decided another hundred could be let into both rooms. But, he told 11 News’ Katie Pelton it comes down to what’s safe.
“There’s an old adage that when a fire marshal walks into a room, milk curdles. So because we’re always looking out for public safety and trying to make certain venues go off successfully and safely sometimes there are people that aren’t very happy with some of the rules and regulations were required to enforce. But it doesn’t bother me at all,” he said.
