What Happened, Exactly, in Oakland’s Ghost Ship Fire?

The photo that first circulated of Derick Almena, the landlord of the Ghost Ship, the Oakland performance space and group house where thirty-six people were killed in a fire, on the night of December 2nd, was a mug shot from a 2015 arrest. The photo gave him a kind of demonic glaze. Almena came into fuller view on Tuesday, when he gave an interview to the “Today” show, in which Matt Lauer pressed him about whether the building had been a safe place to hold a party. Almena defended himself on that count, saying that when he’d rented the warehouse it had been legal, though the space had also been much modified since. He seemed more focussed on the matter of his moral culpability. “I lay my three children down there every night,” Almena said.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

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Published on December 13, 2016 12:30
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