OAKLAND — As he raced out of the Ghost ship as flames quickly consumed the warehouse, Jose Avalos encountered a wandering woman, and told her to follow him, but he lost sight of her as smoke filled the building.
Avalos recalled his harrowing escape — and his inability to save the woman — as jurors cried during testimony in the trial of two men charged with the deaths of 36 people trapped in the East Oakland warehouse that caught fire during a music dance party the night of Dec. 2, 2016.
“I felt like the fire was just above me the whole time I was running out,” Avalos said on the witness stand during the trial of Derick Almena and Max Harris, who are each charged with 36 counts of manslaughter in the deaths of dance partygoers who died in the fire in the Fruitvale district of East Oakland.
Avalos, 41, was mostly soft spoken on the witness stand Thursday while being questioned about his experience that night, his interactions with the defendants, the events that would go on there, and the living conditions at the warehouse. He mostly provided short but straight-forward answers, at times seeming annoyed with the prosecutors questions. When he began talking about escaping the fire and trying to save the woman, he broke down crying, as did many of those in the courtroom.
Avalos had been living in the warehouse for about two years with his two dogs, both dachshund mixes, before the tragic blaze. That evening, he had gotten home from work, walked the dogs, picked up some dog food or food for himself — he couldn’t quite remember on Thursday — from the Bridgeside Shopping Center, and settled into his loft bed on the first floor of the warehouse around 11 p.m. as the dance party started upstairs, he said. He started to doze off after ending a phone conversation with his partner.
That’s when he heard his roommate Bob Mule shout, “Fire.”
Avalos popped out of bed and started to climb down the loft to grab one of the small fire extinguishers Almena had previously handed out to tenants. But when he saw the size of the fire, he ditched the extinguisher.
“I could see that it was past the point of being able to do anything,” Avalos said.
He grabbed his dogs and started to run for the door when he bumped into a young woman whom he had never seen before and who appeared to be lost. With the dogs under his arms, he told her to follow him, but he quickly lost track of her as the white smoke filled the warehouse.
Avalos’ testimony had many of the jurors in tears, as well as the victims’ family members sitting in the audience.
During cross-examination, he portrayed the warehouse in a positive light, a stark contrast from testimony earlier that day from a tenant who moved out after living there only a short time in 2014 out of fear for her safety.
Jennifer Turner, who moved into an Airstream trailer in the warehouse in November 2014, said she didn’t “feel safe sleeping there” out of fear of a possible fire. Her testimony painted a chaotic picture of the warehouse filled with mounds of wood scraps and having shoddy electrical work.
Defense attorneys, during cross-examination, tried to cast doubt on her knowledge of what the warehouse looked like the night of the fire, since she hadn’t set foot inside since early 2015.
Turner gave her 30-day notice three weeks after moving in, losing a $600 non-refundable “buy-in” deposit that seemed to her to go nowhere.
Avalos, during cross-examination, said the place had been cleaned up a lot since 2014. There were clear pathways throughout the space, and the tenants all chipped in to keep the place tidy and safe. It felt like a community, he said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever really felt at home other than there,” Avalos said.
He said there was no hierarchy among the people who lived there, and everyone treated each other with respect.
Avalos paid $565 for his space and Turner paid paid $600. Turner said she was told her buy-in fee would be used for making improvements to the warehouse.
Turner spoke of extension cords hung from the ceilings, and said that she was asked to purchase a 50-foot cord to power her trailer. It connected to a power distribution box — or spider box — outside.
Apart from the safety concerns, she was put off by the shower and bathrooms, as well as the noise. The bathrooms were dirty, and “a place I didn’t want to set foot in,” she said. She ended up taking showers at a nearby 24 Hour Fitness where she had a membership.
Almena would often work on projects during the early morning hours and get into screaming bouts with people, Turner said, making it hard for her to sleep. There were a few nights when she would stay in her car to get some sleep, she said.
Turner testified the warehouse lacked the community feel Almena had pitched to her when she was first thinking of moving in. She felt as though her $600 deposit would never actually be used to turn the place into the “surrealist pirate theater” mentioned in the ad, she said.
The final straw for Turner, though, was seeing police outside the warehouse in late 2014. Almena had been squabbling with someone else who lived there, and somebody — the defense, during cross-examination, identified that person as Almena — called the police. Though she did not see police officers go inside or know the full story of why they were there, just seeing them there made her feel anxious, she said. Turner then paid her $600 rent for December and announced she would be out in 30 days.