OAKLAND — When he told Derick Almena the Ghost Ship warehouse was a death trap, Almena replied, “Ha, ha, we should call it ‘Satya Yuga Death Trap,’ ” Rodney Griffin testified Tuesday.
Satya Yuga was what the artists’ collective that lived in the warehouse called itself.
“I shook my head and left,” Griffin said.
Griffin was one of the witnesses called Tuesday in the Alameda County Superior Court trial against Almena and Max Harris, 29, who are each charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from the warehouse blaze in East Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood that killed three dozen people who had shown up for a dance party.
Although Griffin isn’t a licensed contractor, he has more than 40 years of experience in construction, electrical work and manufacturing. In 2013 he visited the Ghost Ship warehouse at Almena’s request to evaluate the building before a lease was signed with the owners. Griffin was a close friend of Almena, worked with him on festivals and building sets and staging, and had also lived with his family for a year.
He told Almena a fire exit door needed to be brought up to code, for around $2,000. Griffin also quoted a price — $3,000 — to build a stairway between the first and second floors. Almena said the cost was too high and he could get it done for far less. Almena wanted to build the stairs with pallets,Griffin testified.
Six months after the lease was signed, Griffin returned for a visit to the warehouse, which he described as “death trap.” Griffin testified that he saw three motor homes inside the 10,000-square-foot building, as well as pianos, organs, tapestries, artwork, old wood pieces, and stacks of speakers and bed frames.
That was when Almena scoffed at him, Griffin said.
Griffin said he also went to the Oakland Fire Department station just a few blocks away and asked to see the fire chief sometime after an arson fire was reported there in September 2014. He told fire officials his concerns about the Ghost Ship’s interior, especially with Almena’s children living on the second floor of the two-story building.
Under cross-examination from defense attorney Curtis Briggs, Griffin said fire officials told him they had “received numerous complaints and reports” about the Ghost Ship, but didn’t take any notes during the meeting and “acted like it was under control.”
Griffin said Oakland fire officials told him, “We’re aware of it.”
Earlier Tuesday, a man who let people inside the Ghost Ship warehouse on the night it turned into an inferno testified that he didn’t see a group of people milling outside or anyone with a Molotov cocktail that could have been used to set the fire.
The testimony, elicited by Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Autrey James, seemed to contradict the defense’s contention that the cause of the deadly Dec. 2, 2016, blaze that killed 36 people was arson.
With no official cause of the warehouse fire determined, defense attorneys have suggested a group of mystery men spotted outside the building that night torched it. Instead, they have argued, trial defendants Derick Almena and Max Harris, who lived in the warehouse, are being treated as scapegoats. The two are being tried on 36 counts each of involuntary manslaughter.
Ryan O’Keefe testified he was just inside the front door of the warehouse with Harris and two others greeting people for a concert that night on the second floor when, around 11:15 p.m., he saw a “glow of fire” in the back of the building and heard people yell “Fire!” Within five seconds he thought he saw what looked like an explosion turn into an inferno; it didn’t make any noise.
O’Keefe said he and the three others escaped through the front door.
“I only had time to yell ‘fire’ and see four people come out the front door,” O’Keefe testified. “I didn’t have time to grab my laptop, wallet or beer. I didn’t have time.”
O’Keefe said he had arrived around 6 p.m. that day to volunteer and let people inside, taking donations of about $10 each. He said roughly 50 to 70 people — about 90 percent of whom he knew — arrived that night.
He and the three others at the front of the warehouse in a booth near the kitchen area, greeting people as they arrived. He said the mood was “jovial, happy,” and he worked from around 6 to 9:30 p.m., socializing, talking with people, smoking and having a beer.
He said the smoke was “extremely viscous” and had a “sparkle to it like graphite.” He also said he saw and heard light bulbs bursting and popping in succession, going out from back to front.
O’Keefe said he did not see a fire or smoke alarm, but did see a fire extinguisher in the bathroom area.
Under cross-examination, O’Keefe testified that that night had been his second visit to the Ghost Ship. The first visit was in November 2016 when he was invited by a friend to a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by Almena and his family.
O’Keefe said it was the first time he had met Almena, his wife and their three children, and he didn’t know any of the approximately 10 other people who had gathered.
In response to a question by Tony Serra, Almena’s attorney, O’Keefe testified that the Thanksgiving dinner was held on the second floor, the stairs were stable and he didn’t consider the Ghost Ship a “death trap” or feel like he was in danger.
He also said he saw musicians carry equipment up the stairs the night of the fire.
“If someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail at the back wall, you couldn’t see that, could you?” Serra asked. O’Keefe didn’t directly answer, but said he could see people in the building at the time of the fire, though not in the back.
O’Keefe showed up to testify after a warrant was issued for his arrest. The warrant was expected to be revoked.
Also on Tuesday, Dr. Thomas Rogers, a forensic pathologist with the Alameda County Coroner’s Office, testified about performing autopsies on nine of the Ghost Ship victims. He said the cause of death of all nine was from smoke inhalation.
On Monday, prosecutors announced that one of their witnesses, Robert Jacobitz, had died. Jacobitz died Sunday after collapsing in the parking lot of the San Pablo Lytton Casino on San Pablo Avenue around 2:40 p.m., authorities said. He was an unlicensed contractor who had performed work at the warehouse.
Defense attorneys repeatedly have said Almena and Harris have been “scapegoats” in efforts to blame someone for the fire. They also have made it no secret that their defense will show that the city of Oakland and its fire and police departments are culpable for the deadly blaze.
