COSTA MESA FIRE DEPUTY CHIEF It was...

COSTA MESA

FIRE DEPUTY CHIEF

It was five years ago, but Costa Mesa Fire Deputy Chief Gregg

Steward remembers that day like it was this morning.

Steward recalls walking on to the preschool playground, which had

been transformed into a battleground littered with casualties.

Steward was a captain with the Fire Department then and helped his

colleagues take care of the injured.

“The little boy was taken to the hospital and I hoped he was going

to be OK,” he said.

But 3-year-old Brandon Wiener never made it out of Hoag Memorial

Hospital Presbyterian.

As he was scanning the ground to see who else needed help, Steward

looked back and saw a dead child who had been covered in a yellow

tarp.

It was 4-year-old Sierra Soto.

“Everyone was busy finishing up the scene,” he said. “I saw the

yellow cover blowing in the breeze. I just felt I needed to sit with

her there.”

Then Battalion Chief Jim Ellis walked up to Steward and asked him

if the child under the tarp was a boy or a girl. Steward didn’t know

at the time. So, he lifted the cover to look.

“That was when I saw Sierra for the first time,” he said. “I told

the chief, ‘It’s a little girl.’”

Steward said he had a lot of mixed feelings on the scene. He

wondered what Sierra’s final moments were like.

“Here she was in the playground having fun, swinging in the swing,

playing with her friends and having a good time,” he said. “And then

suddenly, it’s all over.”

Steward remembers looking over at Steven Allen Abrams and

thinking: “Does this man even know what he’s done?”

At first he thought maybe Abrams had a seizure or a heart attack,

Steward said.

“But when one of the guys told me it was intentional, all those

feelings changed to disbelief, frustration and anger,” he said.

Steward said he has been on a lot of tough calls in more than 28

years as a firefighter.

“I’ve been on murders, suicides and traffic accidents,” he said.

“But [Abrams’] intent was the hardest for me to take in. These were

little children who had no idea what was going to happen to them.

There was no reason for this to happen to them.”