Posted on 09/06/2019 9:54:54 AM PDT by Navy Patriot
Almost three years after a fire ripped through an Oakland warehouse and killed 36 people, jurors in the Ghost Ship criminal trial acquitted one defendant of involuntary manslaughter Thursday and hung on the guilt of the warehouse’s master tenant.
Max Harris, 29, walked out of jail in Dublin on Thursday night and Derick Almena, 49, spent another night in his jail cell, as prosecutors decide whether to retry him on the 36 charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Each faced up to 39 years in prison if convicted on all charges stemming from the deadly Dec. 2, 2016, inferno at an electronic music party in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood. Five months after the trial began, jurors found Harris not guilty, while only 10 of the 12 jurors could agree Almena was guilty of negligence in turning the warehouse into a deadly firetrap.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfchronicle.com ...
Ghost Ship trial: Max Harris walks out of jail after acquittal; Derick Almena remains jailed after mistrial in his case
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These two were certainly irresponsible and negligent civillians, but the prosecution was to provide fall guys to cover for the criminally negligent professional San Francisco Government Code inspectors, Fire inspectors, and Police who ignored this firetrap for years.
Sorry, that should read Oakland City Government.
They should have sued the city of Oakland as they were full aware that this building was a disaster waiting to happen. Instead, like most city bureaucrats, they sat on their asses and did nothing. Only thing their good at is finding ways to extract another nickel from folks like you and I.
A lot of people in this area are upset at the verdicts.
There is talk of a retrial for Almena, since 10 of the 12 jurors found him guilty. The actual owner of that warehouse, Chor Ng, has never been convicted, never even been charged for criminal negligence of city safety codes. Nobody seems to know why.
Now, they get a taste of how the entire state felt last week when Kate Steinle’s illegal alien killer had his conviction overturned.
Exactly, the local authorities knew about this fire trap and blatant building codes, fire codes, zoning etc code violations for a long time, and apparently visited the place multiple times, and did absolutely nothing.
But o my god, one shall NEVER hold a government official accountable...
In fact, next they will want more money from taxes to be sure it never happens again.
It seems that lawlessness abounds and certain people of the right political persuasion get away. Now if your filming baby killers confessing their sins then you are charged and probably convicted.
Convicting the man who films abortionists?
That used to be Kamala’s part time job as State Atty. Gen.
She actually complied with the law, properly operated and equipped the premises as a warehouse, ordered squatters and live in's out, always cooperated with inspectors and police and (the key action) kept records of that cooperation.
The Police, Sheriff and Fire Inspectors, on the other hand never cooperated with her to physically remove these same violators.
Being as they paid the rent, there was nothing she could do.
These Leftist Hippie "artists" are protected and entitled by Oakland Government Officials, and landlords are almost helpless legally, in Oakland, against them.
The Media don't want that fact well known, thus Chor Ng does not exist.
Oakland juries are not known for brainpower. That being said I agree 100% with your analysis. The jury probably felt it was unfair to lay 100% of the blame on these numskulls when many others (city, landlord, Oakland PD and fire) were negligent. Personally I see no loss to society from imprisoning these clowns until they are senior but maybe cheaper just to kick them loose and let them OD within a year.
That alone might have raised sufficient doubt as to Mr. Harris' culpability since he was at the event himself, and apparently attempted to help some people escape.
Clearly the lack of oversight by the city inspectors allowed a dangerous situation to exist, but the attendees also should have been able to assess the dangerousness of the situation. One of the points many news reports have made is that the building lacked fire exits or fire exit signs.
That alone should indicate to visitors that the building is a dangerous place. One look at the interior would have also told them that. Every adult of normal intelligence should have been taught as a child to look for exits, have a plan to escape a fire, etc.
The blame can't entirely be laid at the feet of the defendants, even though they made a convenient target for the government and others.
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