First Interstate Bank

Description

A maintenance engineer, Alexander John Handy, was killed in a fire at the First Interstate Bank Building while in an elevator. 40 others, workers and firemen, were injured in the blaze. Security personnel had sent Handy to the 12th floor, where the fire broke out, to investigate. He was given a special fire key to activate a switch inside the elevator. The elevator became stuck with the doors open and he burned to death. The fire investigation also found that seven minutes elapsed between the first alarm and the time fire officials received their initial report of the fire becasue security personnel had turned off the smoke alarms, in violation of fire regulations, under the belief they were false. City officials said after the fire that a fire door on the 12th floor had been propped open by bags of trash, in violation of safety codes.

Prosecutors

District Attorney Ira Reiner; City Attorney James K. Hahn