Family Disputes Fire Officials' Findings
December 6, 2000
Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger is filing a $800 million lawsuit against the city of Detroit and its housing commission on behalf of a family that lost six children in a deadly blaze Friday.
A fire broke out in a two-story apartment building in the Brewster-Douglas housing development Friday. Jo Ann Campbell, the mother of three of the children, was home at the time and baby-sitting for the other children. Juanita Fish managed to escape the blaze with her 7-month-old son Jonathan.
Three children were dead on the scene. The other three died at Children's Hospital.
Killed in the fire were: Joyce Brown, 6 Christopher Brown, 2 Blake Brown, 1 Johnny Fish, 7 Jermaine Fish, 6 Naomi Fish, 2 Jerry Bell, Campbell's and Fish's cousin, said that the families are not happy with the fire department's verdict.
Fieger said that he was approached by the children's family because they believe that the fire was due to an electrical malfunction or a faulty furnace.
Bell said that neither of the women smoke and the children were asleep at the time of the fire.
We believe there were problems with the furnace, and there's no way those children started that fire," Bell said.
Smoke detectors in the apartment were working, but Lt. Steve Varnas of the fire department's arson section said that Fish apparently ignored them because they had sounded inadvertently on Thursday.
It is not known whether the batteries had been removed.