GREAT WHITE Nightclub Fire: Videos, Testimony Offer Detailed Look At Tragedy

Paul Edward Parker and Mark Arsenault of The Providence Journal report:

Nearly four years after a rock band's fireworks ignited the Station nightclub, the public yesterday got its most detailed look to date at the investigation into the fire that killed 100 people and injured more than 200 others.

Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch made public more than 10,000 pages of grand jury testimony and witness statements, as well as seven videos, three of which showed the burning building and a fourth, shot by the West Warwick Police Department, showing investigators combing through the charred ruins of the nightclub.

The disclosure of material comes in response to a public records request by The Providence Journal, which was joined by other media organizations. It was also fulfilling a pledge Lynch made to relatives of the people who died to make the evidence available to answer lingering questions after the criminal prosecutions ended without public trials.

"I firmly believe that our disclosures of information have served the public interest and public good, but I have no illusions about the high costs they have privately exacted upon The Station fire families," Lynch said in a statement yesterday. "I understand that the release of case information — and particularly today's information, which describes and depicts the events of Feb. 20, 2003, in vivid detail — could well be very traumatic and painful, and I want the victims' families and the survivors to know how much I regret any further sorrow this causes them."

Read the entire article at www.projo.com.