Tim Arango, Thomas Fuller and Lauren Hepler

On Dec. 2, 2016, the fire tore through a late night party in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood in a building that had been transformed into a ramshackle artist collective known as Ghost Ship.

Many of the residents were living there in violation of zoning laws and the tragedy highlighted the glaring failures of the city’s leaders to enforce building and fire codes. The inferno also became an emblem of the rising cost of living in the Bay Area that led so many to seek shelter in a run-down building.

The two men on trial were Derick Almena, 49, the master tenant and leaseholder, and Max Harris, 29, described by prosecutors as Almena’s right-hand in managing the warehouse, who collected rent from tenants and arranged events. They each faced a maximum of 39 years in prison.

Harris was acquitted and the jury told Alameda County Superior Court Judge Trina Thompson that they could not reach a decision on Almena.

The jury’s decision comes after a tortuous deliberation process that began in July but was interrupted last month when Thompson dismissed three jurors for unspecified misconduct, replacing them with three alternates and ordering the jury to begin deliberating from scratch. The trial featured three months of testimony.

In closing arguments, the prosecutor called the warehouse a “death trap,” and dismissed the defense’s claims that arsonists might have been responsible for the blaze. Witnesses had testified that there were no smoke alarms or sprinklers.

Lawyers for Almena and Harris built a defense on the basis of casting blame for the fire on the landlord and city officials who had visited the property over the years and had never condemned it as a fire hazard. Investigators never determined the exact cause of the fire.

The families of the victims had wanted city officials and the landlords to be charged, but at the end of the investigation it was only Almena and Harris who faced criminal charges.

This article originally appeared in

Ghost Ship Jury Acquits One Defendant and Can't Reach Verdict on the Other

SAN FRANCISCO — A jury in Oakland, California, acquitted one man and could not reach a decision on a second man’s role in the 2016 warehouse blaze that killed 36 people in one of the deadliest structural fires in recent American history.

Many of the residents living in the Ghost Ship warehouse were artists who had jammed the space with items — “fence boards, shingles, window frames, wooden sculptures, tapestries, piano,” according to court documents — that became kindling for the fire. Many of the victims were attending the party on the second floor, and were unable to escape down the staircase.

The fire quickly consumed the building, which was built in 1930 and was once a milk bottling plant, even though there was a fire station less than 200 yards away. A local newspaper, the East Bay Times, won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the fire, for reporting that it “exposed the city’s failure to take actions that might have prevented it,” according to the prize committee.

In closing arguments, the prosecutor called the warehouse a “death trap,” and dismissed the defense’s claims that arsonists might have been responsible for the blaze. Witnesses had testified that there were no smoke alarms or sprinklers, and that Almena once laughed off the suggestion that the warehouse was dangerously susceptible to fire.

The grief of the family members of the victims, many of whom packed into an overflow room during the proceedings, permeated the trial, with the prosecution reading the names of the each of the 36 people who died, and showing final text messages as victims said goodbye to loved ones before they perished.

“I can just be at home and all of a sudden I cry thinking about something,” David Gregory, who lost his daughter, Michela, in the fire, told The Los Angeles Times. “I come to court — at least I’m learning what’s going on. I’ve been committed to coming to learn everything, as much as I can, about this case. I want answers.”

Lawyers for Almena and Harris built a defense on the basis of casting blame for the fire on the landlord and city officials who had visited the property over the years and had never condemned it as a fire hazard. Investigators never determined the exact cause of the fire, but it was widely suspected to have been ignited after an electrical malfunction.

“If the standard of guilt here is what a reasonable person would do, well then are the police not reasonable people?” Carmen Brito, a former tenant of Ghost Ship, told reporters during the trial. “Are the firefighters not reasonable people, social workers? All of them seemed to think it was safe, so why would we have thought anything different?”

Taking the stand in his own defense, Almena spoke about being in solitary confinement, and gaining 60 pounds while in prison. “I’m just so sad,” he said on the stand, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The families of the victims had wanted city officials and the landlords to be charged, but at the end of the investigation it was only Almena and Harris who faced criminal charges. The pair were arrested in June of 2017 and each charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter.

In July of last year prosecutors announced they had reached a plea deal with Almena and Harris in which the defendants agreed to plead no contest to the charges and serve prison time. Under the deal, Almena would serve 9 years in prison, and Harris would serve 6 years.

But a month later, after an outcry from families who saw the deal as too lenient, a judge rejected the agreement, setting up a trial that began in late April.

In addition to the criminal trial, families are continuing to pursue civil litigation against the city and the landlord, Chor Nar Siu Ng, who bought the building in 1988.

Many family members of the victims attended the three month trial, and some spoke to reporters outside the courthouse. “It’s not about retribution, revenge, being out for blood or any of that,” Chris Allen, who lost his sister Amanda in the fire and came from Boston for the trial, told reporters on Wednesday, following the closing arguments. “We’re here for accountability.”

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Tim Arango, Thomas Fuller and Lauren Hepler

Articles written by the author

Ghost Ship Jury Acquits One Defendant and Can't Reach Verdict on the Other

Ghost Ship Jury Acquits One Defendant and Can't Reach Verdict on the Other