Chicago
Fire Kills Six Children
By Tom Mackaman
05 September 2006
World
Socialist Web
Early
Sunday morning a third-floor apartment on Chicago’s North Side
caught fire, killing six children ranging in age from 3 to 14 years.
Two more children remain in critical condition.
The fire was started by a
candle, according to the Chicago Fire Department, and quickly spread
throughout the three-bedroom apartment. The family of Amado Ramirez
and Augusta Tellez had been without electricity since May and had been
using candles for light. Officials have not indicated why the electricity
had been turned off, however, it is common for working families to lose
their heat and electricity service if they are unable to pay their bills.
The children killed were
Vanessa, Eric, Suzette, Idaly, and Kevin Ramirez, ages 14, 12, 10, 6,
3; and Escarlet Ramos, age 3. Escarlet Ramos had been staying over at
the home of the Ramirez family the night of the fire.
Ten children plus two adults
were living in the crowded apartment. The father and eldest daughter,
aged 17, were gone at the time. The mother of five of the children,
Augusta Tellez, was treated for injuries along with three other children.
Tellez saved her three-month old baby, and neighbors saved one child.
Further rescue efforts were blocked by flame and smoke, and by a locked
door that could not be broken down. Later, firefighters rescued one
more child.
As the fire raged, children
were heard screaming in the apartment. The children’s bodies were
later discovered huddled together in one room. Autopsies indicate that
most died of smoke inhalation.
The Ramirez family is a working
class family. Both Ramirez and Tellez were employed in a Chicago-area
laundry. Initially from Mexico, they entered the US without documentation
some 15 years ago and have lived in Chicago since. Some of the children
took odd jobs to add to the family income. By all accounts, Amado Ramirez
and Augusta Tellez were dedicated parents.
One neighbor, Liz Stutler,
who also tutored the children, said that the children studied at night
by candlelight.
A 4th-grade teacher at the
grade school the children attended, Stephen Brown, described the difficulties
the family confronted, “The mother was very hard working. She
had to face a life of economic hardship, but she really did put the
kids first in every way.... It’s too sad, that’s all. How
is it possible that they don’t have electricity? I don’t
understand.”
A neighbor, Jasmin Lamb,
said, “The community is in shock. They were a nice, warm family.
My friend never got into any trouble.”
Early press accounts in both
the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times have focused on the fact that
no working fire alarms were found in the building by Chicago firefighters.
Landlords are required by law to ensure that every apartment has a fire
alarm in it.
The building is owned by
a wealthy Chicago developer, Jay Johnson, who is proprietor of a number
of apartment units in the area. He has contributed to the electoral
campaigns of Democratic Party Alderman Joe Moore, and Moore in turn
has appointed Johnson to the local planning and zoning commission. Johnson
rejected responsibility, and has claimed that functioning smoke alarms
were in place when the Ramirez family moved in and that it is the responsibility
of the tenant to inform the landlord if the alarms malfunction or are
missing.
Moore, who also sits on the
Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee, expressed
regret after the incident that the family had not approached him for
help with their power bill. This is the typical response of a machine
politician, who considers it his role to allocate scarce goods not as
a right, but as a “favor.” It is also disingenuous. Moore
knows full well that tens of thousands of Chicago residents go regularly
without electricity—even in the winter.
Chicago Fire Commission Raymond
Orozco also pinned responsibility on the victims, “If the batteries
went out in someone’s remote control, how long would that last?
But they won’t spend a dollar on a 9-volt battery.”
Yet the landlord, Johnson,
has said that the smoke alarms in his apartment building were hard-wired
directly to the main electrical system. If so, it is possible that when
the Ramirez family’s power was shut off, this simultaneously shut
down their smoke alarms. The Sun Times has pointed to this possibility,
but as of yet neither the landlord, nor the fire department, nor the
power company has explained whether or not the decision to cut off power
to the Ramirez family also cut off their smoke alarms. Johnson told
the Sun-Times he was investigating the matter.
The Chicago Tribune offered
the most callous interpretation of the disaster. It opened its lead
article on the disaster by pinning blame squarely on the family itself,
stating, “Using candles for light ...was a dangerous decision
that proved to be deadly early Sunday.” The Tribune does not ask
why a family with two working adults should be without power in the
first place.
ComEd, the power company
responsible for suspending the electricity to the Ramirez family, has
so far refused to comment. ComEd is a unit of Exelon, one of the nation’s
largest privately owned utilities, which claims annual revenues of more
than $15 billion dollars. In the second fiscal quarter for 2006—the
same period in which the Ramirez family went without power—ComEd
boasted $644 million in profit.
The utilities giant, together
with Ameren, which monopolizes power distribution in downstate Illinois,
has promised a rapid increase in residential rates in the coming years.
ComEd has suggested it will increase rates by of 8, 7, and 6 percent
per year through 2009. This will inflict a serious hardship on millions
of already overburdened Illinois families.
For its part, Ameren has
proposed that residential rates will increase by as much as 30 percent
in one year. Politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties
have authorized this change—ending years of state regulation on
energy prices at the behest of ComEd and Ameren, which stand to reap
windfall profits in the coming years.
Joe Parnarauskis, the Socialist
Equality Party candidate for state Senate in Illinois’ 52nd District,
released a statement on Monday addressing the disaster:
“The fire that killed
six young Chicagoans is an enormous tragedy that demonstrates the barbarity
of the capitalist system. Workers everywhere should be outraged, as
these deaths were not merely a tragic accident. They were the easily
avoidable result of an economic and political system, which puts the
profit imperatives of enormous corporations above the most basic needs
of working people.
“Even though both parents
and a number of children in the Ramirez family worked, they apparently
could not afford to pay their electricity bills. They were then compelled
to illuminate their house with candles, one of which caught the apartment
on fire while the family slept.
“This tragedy highlights
the social crisis facing millions of working people in Illinois and
throughout the United States, who are facing rising costs and stagnating
wages. On a daily basis, people are forced to struggle to meet the costs
of basic necessities—food, electricity, housing, and health care.
At the same time, a small layer of the population continues to amass
huge fortunes.
“Alone among all the
campaigns in 2006, the Socialist Equality Party campaign calls for the
nationalization and placing under the democratic control of the working
people all major utilities. Electricity in homes should be a basic human
right, and no longer subject to the merciless pressures of the profit
system.”