Officer retestifies on last day of trial

Closing arguments to begin July 29

OAKLAND >> Testimony ended Tuesday in the twomonths long Ghost Ship involuntary manslaughter trial with a police officer’s recollection of responding to a 2015 warehouse rave and a defendant taking the stand a second time in a rare move.

Prosecutors called on Oakland Police Officer Hector Chavez, who responded to a rave at the Ghost Ship on March 1, 2015, in their rebuttal case on Tuesday morning. In a police body camera video shown to the jury, Chavez can be heard and seen banging on the door of the Ghost Ship, then telling the person who answers the door that they need to stop the party and get everyone out.

Chavez identified the person who answered as defendant Max Harris, who along with Derick Almena, faces 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of three dozen people who perished in the Dec. 2, 2016, fire that swept through the warehouse during a dance party.

But when the image was freeze-framed on the man, defense attorney Tyler Smith said in comments outside the courtroom that it was clear “to everyone in the courtroom” that it wasn’t Harris.

The prosecution likely called Chavez to debunk Almena’s claim that he didn’t allow any “debauchery” or big parties at the warehouse, which he testified to last week.

This rave — typically large parties with dance music — supposedly charged $25 at the door, had hundreds of people inside and drugs were available for purchase, according to testimony.

“I know that was him,” Chavez testified.

But when Chavez insisted the man in the video was Harris, even saying the man had neck tattoos like Harris does, defense attorneys said this made the police officer look bad.

“I don’t know how to say this other than Officer Chavez looked like an idiot,” said Curtis Briggs, Harris’ attorney, outside the courthouse.

As reported by the Bay Area News Group in 2017, the person who answered the door was likely Sean “Hatter” Griffith, a party promoter. Griffith can be heard in the video saying that they are hosting a private event and tells Chavez he cannot come inside.

Briggs and Smith called the last witness “a gift” to their defense. Smith said they were able to call Harris on the stand again to refute Chavez testimony, and show the jury Harris’ “soft demeanor.”

In the unexpected and rare move, Harris took the stand again Tuesday morning to testify about the party the night of March 1, 2015. He said that he did not answer the door, and was in another part of the warehouse. He did not know who the man was in the video who spoke with Chavez.

“It’s clearly not me,” Harris said.

At one point during his testimony, Harris briefly took off his glasses, likely to show the jury that it was not him, as the man in the video did not wear glasses.

The man who responded allegedly closed the door on the officer. In the video, others could be heard telling the man answering the door to back off.

Chavez said the party was an “illegal cabaret”: an infraction and violation of city code. Chavez wrote a police report about the gathering, but no violation was issued.

Chavez also had an interaction with Almena months before the rave, around January of that year, he testified. He said it was then that Almena lied to him and told him no one was living inside the warehouse, but that he and his wife would occasionally sleep there overnight to finish art projects. There is no recording of that interaction.

The prosecution needs to prove to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Almena and Harris were criminally negligent for involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors allege Almena and Harris allowed the warehouse to be converted from a commercial space for an art collective into a group residence, filling it with combustible items from floor to ceiling that quickly burned in the fire.

There were no proper fire sprinklers, alarms or lighted exit signs, they allege. The prosecution brought in witnesses who said Almena and Harris lied to police by saying no one was living inside the warehouse.

Also on the stand Tuesday was Alameda County District Attorney Inspector Cinda Stoddard. Deputy District Attorney Stacy McCormick put a roughly 1 foot high stack of papers on the witness stand; emails between the Ng family landlords, Almena and Harris.

Stoddard testified that in those emails, she did not see anything between the Ng family and Almena instructing him to lie about people living at the warehouse.

Almena testified last week that Kai Ng advised him to lie to police about people living in the warehouse, and suggested Almena have the residents sign a contract that said they did not live there. It was the first time such information was made public; Almena never mentioned it in interviews with investigators, or media interviews.

In cross-examination, Stoddard admitted that the alleged exchange between Almena and Kai Ng could have occurred in person, or over the phone, without any record of it.

In the weeks leading up to the trial, Kai Ng and his sister, Eva Ng, were subpoenaed for a court hearing to determine whether their testimony could be used during the trial. They both pleaded the Fifth Amendment as allowed under the Constitution and were not called as witnesses during the jury trial. The prosecution refused to give them immunity to testify.

Court will resume with closing arguments on July 29, which are expected to last all week. Deliberations by the jury of 12 could begin as soon as Aug. 2.