High-rise groups’ fire culpability studied

LONDON — British police said Thursday that they have “reasonable grounds” to suspect that local authorities may have committed corporate manslaughter in a deadly high-rise fire in London.

The Metropolitan Police force said it has officially informed the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which owns the Grenfell Tower public housing block, and the management group, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Association, that they are under suspicion.

The news arrived in a letter that police sent to residents of the building. The letter said a senior representative of each body will be interviewed about the fire as part of the police investigation.

Police have said for weeks that their investigation will consider whether anyone should be charged with a crime. Police said Thursday that they were “considering the full range of offenses, from corporate manslaughter to regulatory breaches.”

At least 80 people died June 14 when an early morning fire store through the west London high-rise. It was the deadliest fire in Britain in more than a century.