BIA firefighter claims mentally unfit

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2002

A Bureau of Indian Affairs contract firefighter is trying to have his confession of starting the largest fire in Arizona thrown out of court.

The Arizona Republic reports that a public defender for Leonard Gregg, a member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe, is not mentally fit. A document quoted by the paper says Gregg "has many symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome, his mental functioning is very low, he has poor capacity for abstract thinking (and) he functions emotionally as well as intellectually at a very primitive level."

Gregg, 29, said he started the fire to get work, according to a criminal indictment against him. The blazes, along with another one set by a lost woman, destroyed more than half of the Fort Apache Reservation.

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Firefighter's trial fitness is at issue (The Arizona Republic 12/13)
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