2 charged with manslaughter in blaze at Oakland warehouse that killed 36
OAKLAND, Calif. — Two men were charged Monday with 36 counts of manslaughter in a deadly fire at an Oakland warehouse in December.
The men — Derick Almena, the leaseholder, and Max Harris, who assisted him in a supervisory role in the building — were arrested Monday in connection with the fire, said Nancy E. O’Malley, the district attorney of Alameda County, who brought the charges.
The warehouse, which was illegally occupied, was the site of the nation’s deadliest structural fire in more than a decade. Most of the victims were attending a party on the second floor and were unable to escape down a makeshift staircase.
Almena and Harris “knowingly created a fire trap with inadequate means of escape,” O’Malley said at a news conference Monday. “They then filled that area with human beings and are now facing the consequences of their actions.
“The paying guests at the event were faced with a nearly impossible labyrinth of the defendants’ making. They allowed individuals to live in the warehouse and deceived the police, the Fire Department and the owner of the building to that fact. They allowed large groups to assemble in the warehouse for unpermitted and unsafe musical events in that space.”
Each man faces 39 years in prison, O’Malley saidded.
Little evidence remains
Teresa Drenick, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said the cause of the fire was not likely to be found “because of the nature of the fire and its consumption of nearly all of the evidence.”
Drenick said there were no plans to charge anyone else in the fire and described the investigation as “completed.”
As the master tenant, Almena had a managerial role among the residents of the warehouse, most of whom were artists seeking an affordable space in a city that has seen sharply rising housing costs in recent years.
Mike Madden, the father of one of the victims, Griffin Madden, said he was surprised the owner of the building, Chor Nar Siu Ng, was not being charged.
“Our hope is that this aggressive approach continues, including pursuing charges against her,” Madden said.
The warehouse, which occupants had named the Ghost Ship, was one block from a fire station, and firefighters responded within three minutes of receiving the 911 call on the night of Dec. 2. But the structure, which was filled with wooden antiques and curios, was quickly engulfed in flames.
The court documents filed by the district attorney’s office Monday said Almena collected “fence boards, shingles, window frames, wooden sculptures, tapestries, pianos, organs” and other “ramshackle pieces” that served as the kindling for the fire.
Harris was responsible for renting out the upstairs of the warehouse for the party and prepared the space for the event, the documents say.
“In the course of his preparation, Harris blocked off an area of the second floor that included a second stairwell, which effectively reduced the upstairs guests to a single point of escape,” the documents said.
Poor inspection system
The party was held without any permit from the city. The fire highlighted failures in Oakland’s fire inspection system as well as the scramble for affordable housing.
Harris, interviewed two days after the fire, had attributed the blaze to an electrical system that he described as being in disarray. Efforts to have the owner update the system went unheeded, he said.
“We reached out on multiple occasions, complaining that the power wasn’t working,” Harris said at the time. “They made no attempt to make it right. The landlord was only interested in trying to collect money for electricity.”