Ghost Ship: Public safety is job for all

Thirty-six people died in Oakland’s infamous Ghost Ship fire. Police had seen almost two years earlier that people were living there illegally and in obvious danger. Yet they did nothing.

Why? Because it’s not their department.

A bureaucratic cliché left three dozen people dead.

This isn’t just an Oakland situation, or a police situation. Or a government situation. Whether it’s “my department,” in Oakland or San Jose or Phoenix or New York City, we’d all be safer if we all felt a little more responsible for others’ safety. Public safety. Even if it’s not our job. But especially if it is. People who saw the Ghost Ship from the outside and did report problems to code enforcement, the fire department and others at least now can say they tried. Some probably ask: “Could I have done more?” But “It’s not my department”? Not good enough. Especially if public safety is your career mission.

Mayor Libby Schaaf endorses the police officers’ it’s-not-my-job view.

“Our police officers are trained to identify criminal activity, they are not trained in code enforcement,” Schaaf told our reporters.

Maybe it’s time to train them. Oakland has in the past. But we’re not talking here about wiring for 240volt outlets or the required dimensions of a landing outside a doorway. We don’t expect police dealing with crime to double as code enforcement.

It’s obvious public safety hazards — the things just about any thinking person might notice, but particularly someone conscious of public safety. Would it be so hard to shoot an email? Shouldn’t holistic public safety be on the minds of public employees?

Individuals complained about the Ghost Ship over the years, and nothing was done. But if police officers had spoken up, maybe it would have made a difference.

And if it didn’t, surely the officers would feel better

for having tried.

Newly released records — turned over only after the Bay Area News Group threatened litigation — reveal that police had visited the building and associated properties 35 times between mid-2014 and the Dec. 2 fire.

While we don’t know exactly what they saw, accounts from others who had been in the building describe an obvious death trap. No sprinklers or fire alarms. Only one visible exit. A makeshift stairwell made of wood pallets. Wires strung out to provide electricity. A space filled end-to-end with furniture.

And now, from the records, we know that at least two officers who visited the site also recognized problems.

Officer Hector Chavez wrote that he was flagged down on March 1, 2015, by someone reporting an “illegal rave with drug and alcohol sales” at the warehouse.

Chavez reported that Ghost Ship appeared to fit the city’s definition of a cabaret, which would require a license. But he did not issue any citation “at this time.”

Hours later, Officer Nikola Dokic escorted a warehouse tenant who was retrieving belongings. That was a month after Dokic responded to a call from the warehouse about a landlord who “has a shotgun in his house.”

The reporting party said “this is a warehouse that is also an illegal shared housing.”

Apparently, no cops bothered to pick up the phone or send an email to code enforcement.

Barry Donelan, president of the politically powerful police union, says officers “are not the code enforcement guys, we are the police, we deal with the immediate problem. The questions for me aren’t in the police department, they are elsewhere in the city.”

The questions ought everywhere in the city. Everywhere in every city. Not for purposes of punishing people who didn’t do enough, but of helping one another stay alive.

It’s obvious public safety hazards — the things just about any thinking person might notice, but particularly someone conscious of public safety. Would it be so hard to shoot an email?