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Thread: Family of six, including four children, killed in raging Harlem cooking fire

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    Family of six, including four children, killed in raging Harlem cooking fire

    https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...lwy-story.html

    A raging Harlem cooking fire wiped out a family of six early Wednesday, including four children, officials said.

    Mom Andrea Pollidore, 45, died alongside her 33-year-old stepson and four of her kids after the fire broke out about 1:40 a.m. inside their three-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of the Frederick E. Samuel Houses at Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. and W. 142nd St.

    The youngest victim was 4-year-old Elijah.

    ?He was smart, a quick learner," devastated dad Jean Belot said when he visited the burned out building after getting the tragic news. "I?m not in a good state of mind.?

    Also killed in the fire was little Elijah?s 11-year-old sister, 6-year-old sister and 8-year-old brother, officials said.

    All six victims were found dead inside two bedrooms, officials said.

    "This is a gut wrenching moment for all of us,? Mayor de Blasio said in a press conference at the scene. ?As a father, thinking that yesterday evening four children were going to bed and they?re gone now is very very painful.?

    Friends of the family were left reeling from the loss.

    ?They are good to us," one friend who declined to give his name said. "The daughter was my daughter?s best friend. I saw them yelling out the window . . . They all died in that corner room.?

    The family friend said the 11-year-old daughter frequently cooked for the rest of the family.

    ?One of them was cooking and left the oil on,? the friend speculated.

    Firefighters arrived in three minutes but the blaze quickly spread from the stove top, trapping the family.

    ?We were met at the door of that apartment with fire,? said FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro. ?The entire apartment was involved. They aggressively move in, extinguishing the fire as they did. They reached the two rear bedrooms (where) we found six occupants of that apartment deceased.?

    Flames poured from five windows in the apartment on two sides of the building. ?As aggressive as the members could be, they were not able to reach those occupants,? Nigro said. ?Every bit of that apartment had fire damage.?

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    The fire also damaged the apartment above but nobody there was hurt.

    ?It?s never easy for our members," Nigro added. ?We?re in the business of saving lives. It?s very difficult for our members.?

    A smoke alarm was installed in the apartment in June 2017, NYCHA officials said. But tenants who escaped the building said they heard no alarms.

    ?We want to investigate that very question," de Blasio said. "There had been smoke alarms installed, it had been tested this January. The whole reason for the fire department investigation is understanding everything that happened.?

    Neighbors described escaping from the fast-moving fire.

    ?I heard glass shattering,? said Claudette Grant, 33, who lives on the floor below the doomed family.

    ?Then I heard kids screaming, ?Help, there?s a fire, there?s a fire!? I went out to try to look out the window but before I could get to my living room my neighbors were knocking on the door saying, ?Everybody get out of the building, get out of the building!? I woke everyone up, I got my baby, and we went outside.?

    Grant escaped with her 20-month-old son, 12-year-old daughter and 11-year-old niece. She was shocked to learn her upstairs neighbors weren?t so lucky.

    "It?s still devastating,' she said. ?And to think, Mother?s Day is this weekend.?

    ?I used to see her picking the kids up from school," she said of Pollidore. "I?d see them at the store. She was a giving mother. She would see me with my toddler and she?d be like, ?How old is your baby? I have clothes for him, is he a 3T yet? I?m gonna come over anyway and give you some clothes.? I thought she was caring.?

    Friends said Pollidore, a single mom, was attacked by an ex-boyfriend in Brooklyn about three years ago who threw hot oil in her face, leaving her visibly scarred.

    ?She sacrificed her needs for her kids,? one friend who declined to give his name said. "She got up every morning, made sure they were up, clean, dressed, went to school . . . She loved her kids very much. You saw her, you saw her kids. She did what a mother was supposed to do. She was doing it all on her own.?


    Partial view of the Frederick E. Samuel Houses and the apartment where six people, four of them kids, were killed in a raging Harlem fire Wednesday morning. (Luiz C Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)

    https://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/...STGNCD2SOE.jpg
    Mom Andrea Pollidore, 45, died alongside her 33-year-old stepson and four of her kids. (Obtained by New York Daily News)

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    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    This is horrific. I can't help but wonder what an 11 year old was doing up and cooking at 1:40am though. That's super strange.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    That is too pretty to be shoved up an ass.
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    You can take those Fleets and shove them up your ass



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    midnight snack, my daddy used to do this.

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    It does not say the 11 year old was up cooking when the fire started.

    Fires suck.

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    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by S281Saleen160 View Post
    It does not say the 11 year old was up cooking when the fire started.

    Fires suck.
    It makes it seem like they're saying it. They don't specify, but it would make anyone think that's what they were saying:

    The family friend said the 11-year-old daughter frequently cooked for the rest of the family.

    ?One of them was cooking and left the oil on,? the friend speculated.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    That is too pretty to be shoved up an ass.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nic B View Post
    You can take those Fleets and shove them up your ass



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    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Babe 73 View Post
    It makes it seem like they're saying it. They don't specify, but it would make anyone think that's what they were saying:
    Kinda tricky, reading it again it does make it seem that that's what they're saying.

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    https://pix11.com/2019/06/17/relativ...-for-billions/

    MANHATTAN — Relatives of a family who died in a NYCHA fire last month are now suing the city for billions of dollars in damages.

    The city mourned the death of Andrea Pollidore, a Harlem mom, and her five children last month. A fire tore through their public housing apartment at the Fred Samuels Houses, destroying their home and destroying their family.

    Pollidore, her 33-year-old stepson and four more of her children ages 3 to 11 all died in the fire.

    Evan Oshan is now the lawyer representing Raven Reyes, a surviving daughter of Pollidore and the family. The lawsuit is for $2.2 billion, the same amount Oshan says Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to give NYCHA in January to settle a federal investigation into the troubled agency.

    "I'm calling to have an independent inspection here, whether it goes all the way to the President of the United States or HUD, I need help," he told PIX11. He believes things need to be done and apparently, they haven't been done yet and you can't put a value on human life.

    The blaze started from an unattended stove, according to the city. But Oshan says notices of claim show the city allowed "hazardous and unsafe conditions." He's demanding an independent investigation.

    "This was a tragic incident. The City will review the notice of claim," a city Law Department spokesman told PIX11.

    "The message is you need to do the right thing," says Oshan. He says the family is waiting on the Fire Marshall's report to get answers on what happened that day. He says the family doesn't want this to happen to anyone else.

    Last edited by up2trouble; 06-17-2019 at 02:18 PM.

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    https://pix11.com/2019/05/08/woman-k...2007-shooting/

    HARLEM, Manhattan — A woman who was killed in a blaze at her Harlem apartment early Wednesday, along with her children, had survived two previous fires, family members confirmed to PIX11.

    Andrea Pollidore, 45, her four children — two girls, ages 11 and 6, and two boys, ages 8 and 3 — and a 33-year-old man believed to be the woman's stepson, were killed overnight when a fire that began on a kitchen stove tore through their NYCHA apartment.

    The blaze consumed the fifth-floor home at the Frederick E. Samuel Apartments on the corner of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and West 142nd Street shortly after 1:30 a.m., fire officials said.

    FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the victims were found dead in two separate bedrooms.

    The cause of the fire appears to have been a stove burner that was left turned on, fire officials said, adding that so far there is no indication the fire is suspicious.

    Family members said Andrea Pollidore is no stranger to tragedy.

    Nineteen years ago, Pollidore was severely burned on her arms and hands when her home caught fire. Then, in 2013, the Brooklyn brownstone where Pollidore lived with her family was destroyed by a fire and they were forced to move to their NYCHA apartment in Harlem.

    PIX11 also learned that Pollidore's brother, 21-year-old Kristen McKenzie, was shot and and killed by an off-duty cop at a Brooklyn nightclub in March 2007.

    According to the New York Times, the shooting spurred from a fight that broke out between a large group of people on the dance floor at Elite Ark, near Starrett City.

    When McKenzie and an unarmed officer bumped into each other during the scuffle, McKenzie pulled out a gun and fired at his head, missing him. The unarmed officer tackled him, but McKenzie ended up straddling the officer and witnesses said he continued to wave the gun around.

    A second off-duty officer in the club shot McKenzie four times, killing him.

    Pollidore spoke to the New York Times, saying McKenzie moved to Brooklyn from Trinidad two or three years prior, and worked in construction.


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    Interesting, someone leaves the stove, a fire breaks out, several people die, now the family wants billions claiming they dont want this to happen to anyone else?!

    How about dont leave shit cooking on the stove then you wont have to worry about dying in the fire you caused. Maybe?

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    Senior Member Jumaki15's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by S281Saleen160 View Post
    Interesting, someone leaves the stove, a fire breaks out, several people die, now the family wants billions claiming they dont want this to happen to anyone else?!

    How about dont leave shit cooking on the stove then you wont have to worry about dying in the fire you caused. Maybe?
    Holy shit, I actually kind of agree with Saleen. Wtf.

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    NYCHA faces suit for Harlem ‘death trap’ building where fire killed 6

    https://nypost.com/2020/08/07/nycha-...fire-killed-6/

    The families of the victims who perished in a Harlem public-housing fire last year — including a mom and four of her children — say the building was a “death trap,” according to new court papers.

    Andrea Pollidore, 45, her daughters Nakiyra, 11, Brooklyn, 6, and Andre, 8, son Elijah, 3, and family friend Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, 33, all died in her fifth-floor apartment at the seven-story New York City Housing Authority building on West 142nd Street on May 8, 2019.

    “The Frederick E. Samuels Houses apartment building was a death trap,” allege twin Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuits filed by one of Pollidore’s surviving daughters, Raven Reyes, and Abdul-Rauf’s mother, Jamilla Abdullah.

    An official report on the fire indicated that it started in the kitchen — but the documents say a series of design, maintenance and operations shortcomings in the building contributed to the deaths.

    The tragedy came about despite NYCHA being put on notice over “numerous fatal fires at NYCHA housing complexes in the years and even months leading up to the May 2019 Harlem fire,” the court papers allege.

    For instance, NYCHA allegedly failed to monitor and maintain the fire alarms and smoke detectors in the Harlem building’s hallways and the fire escape and window in that particular apartment. It also failed to install adequate fire alarms, smoke detectors, sprinklers and other fire suppression systems throughout the building, the court documents allege.

    The victims all “were asleep, helplessly trapped in the burning fifth-floor apartment that had steel bars on the windows and no sprinklers,” Evan Oshan, the lawyer for Reyes and Abdullah, said in a statement.

    “The NYCHA defendants intentionally ignored the risk to life and limb associated with the dangerously defective design of Apartment 5G, which improperly and fatally blocked access to the Apartment’s fire escape and egress points,” the suit charges. “This tragedy was foreseeable and preventable.

    “The victims would unquestionably be alive today if the NYCHA defendants and their employees, [had] not engaged in a long and well documented pattern of intentional and grossly negligent conduct that constituted reckless indifference to the tenants they were entrusted to safely shelter and protect,” Oshan said.

    Authorities at the time said Pollidore may have fallen asleep in the kitchen while cooking, in addition to possibly disconnecting the smoke detectors.

    But Oshan told The Post, “We are not convinced that this was a simple food fire.” The lawyer said he is continuing to investigate what caused the fire so the families can get answers.

    A rep with the city Housing Authority told The Post on Friday, “NYCHA does not comment on pending litigation.”

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