Three fireman charged in scheme to incriminate police
John F. Brothers | Herald-Standa
Surrounded by several firefighters Tuesday, including (from left) Billy Bryner, second lieutenant; Wayne Adams Jr., firefighter; and Mike Cramer, second safety officer; James Porterfield (front), second assistant fire chief of the South Connellsville Volunteer Fire Company, responds to charges being filed against three of its members and a fourth person with an association with the fire company.
John F. Brothers | Herald-Standard
James Porterfield, second assistant fire chief of the South Connellsville Volunteer Fire Company, responds Tuesday to charges being filed against three of its members and a fourth person associated with the fire company.
A South Connellsville firefighter reportedly told authorities the president of the fire company threatened to remove him from the company and blackball him from volunteering if he didn’t file a false complaint against a borough police officer.
Kenneth Harshman, 21, of Connellsville told police he’d only been a firefighter for about two months in March when company president Donald Ringer, 64, told him to file a fake complaint against borough Officer Alex Byers, according to court papers.
On March 26, Volunteer Fire Chief Steven Jeremy Grubbs told council he’d received a complaint that Byers was harassing a bingo patron who was smoking behind the fire station, according to a complaint filed in the case.
However, when Byers and Grubbs, 27, reviewed camera footage of the area from that evening, they found nothing had occurred, the complaint indicated. Grubbs reportedly told police he did not know who made the complaint, but said he believed it was someone from Gibson Terrace, police said.
When police found Harshman working at a bingo game on April 2, he gave them a statement about the alleged harassment outside the station and told police Grubbs “made it hard” for police to identify him.
Two days later, Harshman came back to police and told them he lied “as a planned attempt to fabricate an incident that would bring about disciplinary actions against (Byers),” the complaint, filed by Byers, stated.
In the complaint, Byers wrote that the borough’s police chief, Russ Miller, has warned Grubbs “about interfering or misleading police in investigations” on multiple occasions.
During a council meeting in March, several fire company members and residents, including Ringer, complained to council about the police officers. Miller defended his officers, saying they are just doing their jobs.
Harshman faces charges of disorderly conduct, unsworn falsification and conspiracy to commit unsworn falsification. Grubbs is charged with obstructing law enforcement, and Ringer is charged with conspiracy to commit unsworn falsification and coercing or threatening an official act.
In a press conference at the South Connellsville Fire Company on Tuesday, Jim Porterfield, the second assistant chief with the fire company, said neither he, the fire department nor those who were arraigned had any idea charges were being filed against them.
“Nobody notified us,” Porterfield said, adding that the incident stems from friction between the fire department, the police department and borough council, but didn’t elaborate.
The men who were charged did not attend the press conference, and Porterfield said they were instructed by their attorneys to not comment on the matter.
A fourth firefighter, Christopher Joseph Parrill, 23, of South Connellsville was also charged for failing to provide accurate information when he registered under Megan’s Law.
In 2012, Parrill was sentenced to five years of probation for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in a wooded area near Falcon Stadium in Connellsville.
Porterfield said the fire department conducted a background check on Parrill, and that background check came back clean.
“We’ve done them (the background checks),” Porterfield said. “I don’t know what else they (the police/council) want us to do.”
Porterfield said he discussed the matter with Pennsylvania State Fire Commissioner Timothy Solobay and said he was told by Solobay that the background checks were only for the fire department’s records, not the police or council.
Porterfield said the three firefighters charged will remain active in the department, adding that Harshman was not a member of the South Connellsville Volunteer Fire Company, that he would hang out at the station to see if he liked it, but never turned in an application.
The men are scheduled to appear for their preliminary hearings on June 23 before Magisterial District Judge Ronald J. Haggerty Jr.
“It’s bringing us down, these accusations that are being made,” Porterfield said.
Herald-Standard reporter Mark Hofmann contributed to this report.