PETERSBURG – While city officials continue to maintain silence on the case of a city firefighter reportedly drunk behind the wheel of a fire engine that sideswiped a car last week, one member of City Council with a vested interest in the fire department is making his feelings known.
And he is not very happy.
In a post on a Facebook group thread, Ward 1 Councilor Marlow Jones, a former deputy fire marshal in Petersburg, called the entire episode “irresponsible behavior” on both the firefighter for showing up inebriated for a training exercise and the fire department for allowing him to get behind the wheel in that state.
Aaron Michael Hinspater, 34, of North Chesterfield, is on unpaid administrative leave after he was charged with driving while intoxicated during a July 23 fire-training exercise at the intersection of North Sycamore and West Bank streets. According to the arrest warrant, Hinspater said he was trying to squeeze the fire engine into what he called “a tight spot” when he sideswiped a parked car. Two subsequent breathalyzer tests resulted in him blowing a .145 blood alcohol count [BAC] -- almost twice Virginia’s .08 limit of legal intoxication.
He later admitted to drinking 18 beers several hours before taking part in the training.
The car hit by the truck belonged to an an unidentified citizen and was not placed there as part of the operation. That intersection had not been announced as shut down to traffic for the exercise.
Hinspater is expected to be arraigned Friday morning in Petersburg General District Court.
Firefighter put others ‘in danger’
In his post timestamped July 26, Jones said that there was blame to go around for how the incident unfolded. Even if Hinspater had consumed the 18 beers 11 hours before showing up for work, it was “less likely that his BAC would still be that high ... unless he continued to consume alcohol or if he has a very slow metabolism rate,” Jones posted.
According to health and public-safety experts, someone with a BAC of .145 would have telltale signs of intoxication for some time after their last drink. Those signs include slurred speech, loss of coordination and dexterity, and a strong odor of alcohol emitting from their bodies.
Jones rhetorically asked, “What does this mean?” then went on to answer his question.
“It means that this individual drove to work almost dead already,” he posted. “It means he put his own life in danger, let alone the lives of loved ones we don’t even know who are traveling to and from work thinking they will see their families again and someone like this is irresponsible and can possibly end the life of an innocent person.”
Jones said it also meant that Hinspater, whom he never named in the post, “placed his co-workers in danger and the possibility of them losing their lives on a fire scene, or by driving like he did by being this intoxicated.”
He then shifted responsibility to Hinspater’s colleagues and supervisors.
“It means that either no one smelled the alcohol on this guy, no one checked this rookie firefighter or observed him that morning, or more than just he participated in a few beers!!!” Jones wrote. “Either way you look at it, this is irresponsible behavior!”
Everyone else stays silent
With his Facebook post, Jones has become the only city leader to make a statement about the Hinspater case. Until that point, the city has kept silent on the case outside of a four-sentence statement issued by Petersburg’s city spokesperson two days after Hinspater’s arrest.
That lid even applied to Petersburg Mayor Sam Parham when asked by The Progress-Index at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting about the incident. Because there was no public-comment period scheduled for the special meeting, citizens did not get a chance to address issues not on the agenda.
Normally someone who is not reticent to publicly share his thoughts, Parham smiled and said, “No comment,” before heading into a closed session of council.
Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.
This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: 'Irresponsible behavior': Petersburg councilor shares thoughts on intoxicated firefighter case
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