NY Daily News

There were speeches and prayers and mournful music and tears at Engine 24/Ladder 5 Monday morning, as there always are at the FDNY plaque dedications that mark the first anniversary of line-of-duty deaths.

The difference was that the anniversary of the deaths of Lt. Joseph Graffagnino and Firefighter Robert Beddia in the Deutsche Bank fire may soon be followed by indictments from the Manhattan district attorney. The DA may even charge the city with criminal negligence.

"I think they should be tried for murder," Joseph Graffagnino Sr. told reporters after the memorial plaques were unveiled and a bugler played taps and his son's widow stood with one hand over her sorrowing heart and the other blotting away tears.

The father was referring to those whose negligence contributed to the deaths, in particular to anyone who cut corners for the sake of profit.

"If they screw up in a building and they deliberately do things that are wrong in the building just to pocket money and people die because of it, then people should be held accountable," he added.

He was approached by Vina Drennan, widow of Capt. John Drennan of this same firehouse, who was killed in 1994 in significant measure because an apartment did not have a smoke alarm. She has spent the 14 years since campaigning for increased fire safety, as Graffagnino has been doing with determination born of love and loss.

"You gotta keep in their face," Graffagnino said of those officials in a position to prevent further tragedies.

"It's the best way to honor them," Drennan said, meaning firefighters such as Graffagnino's son and her husband, who have paid with their lives. Her husband's bronze plaque had been mounted on the firehouse wall 13 years before, along with those for the two other firefighters killed in that fire on Watts St.

Also on the wall were plaques for the 11members of Engine 24/Ladder 5 who died on 9/11. The firehouse had lost a total of 14 firefighters in 13 wrenchingly unlucky years when an alarm came in on Aug. 18, 2007, for Box 770047, the Deutsche Bank building at the edge of Ground Zero.

As two more plaques go up, the FDNY is expected to review with the Graffagnino and Beddia families the department's official report on the fire. That will be followed by the results of the Manhattan DA's investigation.

The long list of people at whom the DA has been taking a hard look includes a former deputy mayor, executives of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., construction contractors, Buildings Department officials and FDNY higher-ups. When the culprits are finally named, we should not let them cause us to forget one heroic firefighter; a young man from Engine 255 who was filling in at Engine 24/Ladder 5 the day of the fire.

When Graffagnino ran out of air in the man-made hell on high, the young firefighter - anonymous for now - removed the regulator from his own face mask to share his air. The smoke was so toxic that the young firefighter nearly lost consciousness after one choking breath of it.

The firefighter managed to reach the building's exterior and summon comrades, who rushed in to help. Graffagnino was already beyond saving, as was Beddia.

Such bravery makes all the more intolerable the negligence and indifference that may soon result in criminal charges and perhaps even a measure of justice.

Maybe someday we will have big shots a fraction as good as that young firefighter who shared his air and all the other firefighters who routinely dash into danger for the sake of strangers, no matter how many plaques go up on the wall.