Jane Byrne Orders Chicago Fire Department to Stand Down

Former Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne has died at age 81. http://t.co/g41WllxX5B pic.twitter.com/FxfIvtwKp0
— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) November 14, 2014

Pol Light Moment #104 happened on November 11, 1981, when Jane Byrne (1934-2014) ordered the Chicago Fire Department to cease the unsafe practice of using force to stop climber Dan Goodwin (AKA SpiderDan) from climbing the John Hancock Center. Jane Byrne was the first and only female Mayor of the City of Chicago, serving from 1979-1983.

Here is the Wikipedia account of Jane Byrne ordering the Chicago Fire Department to stand down.

On Veterans Day, November 11, 1981, Dan Goodwin, who had successfully climbed the Sears Tower on Memorial Day, battled for his life on the side of the John Hancock Center. William Blair, Chicago's then-fire commissioner, had ordered the Chicago Fire Department to stop Goodwin by directing a full power fire hose at him and by using fire axes to break window glass in Goodwin's path. Mayor Byrne rushed to the scene and ordered the fire department to stand down. Then, through a smashed out 38th floor window, she told Goodwin, who was hanging from the building's side a floor below, that though she did not agree with his climbing of the John Hancock Center, she certainly opposed the fire department knocking him to the ground below. Byrne then allowed Goodwin to continue to the top as thousands of people on the street below gave him an ovation and screamed, "Go! Go! Go!" (Source - Wikipedia, Jane Byrne, 11/15/2014)

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