By Glenn Smith and Doug Pardue
The Post and Courier
CHARLESTON, S.C. — No one has been charged criminally in the deaths of nine Charleston firefighters four years ago because investigators couldn’t pinpoint who started the fatal blaze and too many people shared blame for its tragic outcome.
That was the conclusion authorities reached after a lengthy investigation into the June 18, 2007, fire that destroyed the massive Sofa Super Store in West Ashley with nine men trapped inside.
In order to fix criminal responsibility, investigators had to be able to say whose mistake or misdeed led directly to the firefighters’ deaths. They couldn’t do that. Investigators never determined who sparked the fire. And a series of in-depth probes faulted the store and the Fire Department for the tragedy that followed, leaving each side pointing fingers at the other and no clear suspect to prosecute, authorities said during several interviews this past week.
Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said his investigators spent 11 months working with various agencies sifting through a case that was extremely complex.
“After analysis, we just didn’t feel that we had sufficient cause to go forward with a warrant,” he said.
Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson announced this month that no prosecutions would result from the fire investigations, leaving civil courts to decide who — if anyone — should pay for the deaths. Her decision opened to public inspection hundreds of pages of previously sealed records from state and local criminal investigations into the fire.
Those records, obtained by The Post and Courier, reveal an intensive, but futile, effort by Charleston police and State Law Enforcement Division agents to pinpoint the cause and blame for the fire’s start.
The records also reveal city investigators spent months trying to build a criminal case against store owner Herb Goldstein based on code violations found at the store.
Just two weeks after the fire, police department attorney Mark Bourdon sent a memo to Mullen outlining possible charges that could be filed, including an involuntary manslaughter count against Goldstein.
Bourdon told Mullen the state would have to prove criminal negligence on the store owner’s part was the “proximate,” or direct, cause of the deaths. Bourdon also pointed out cases in which owners, landlords and proprietors had been found guilty of manslaughter based on code violations. Among the cases cited was the 2003 fire at The Station nightclub in Rhode Island that killed 100 people during a concert by the rock band Great White.
Charleston police compiled numerous interviews and records detailing illegally built additions, improperly stored solvents, padlocked doors, inadequate exits and other issues that compromised the sofa store’s safety. They also dug up transcripts from a 1996 city hearing in which Goldstein demonstrated a knowledge of city fire codes.
Mayor Joe Riley cited some of that information in May 2008 when he publicly blamed Goldstein for the firefighters’ deaths.
In the end, however, there wasn’t sufficient cause to press charges against the store owner, Mullen said. “It didn’t rise to the level of criminal prosecution.”
Part of the reason is that various expert studies also pointed to a host of missteps on the part of fire commanders.
A May 2008 report by a city-appointed panel of fire experts cited command failures as a predominant factor in the Fire Department’s unstructured and uncoordinated response to the blaze, which exposed firefighters to “excessive and avoidable risks.”
Relatives of two firefighters killed in the blaze asked for further investigation by SLED in hope of seeing manslaughter charges brought against former Fire Chief Rusty Thomas and criminal negligence charges lodged against Riley and others. SLED agreed to review the case at Wilson’s request but found no grounds for criminal charges. Wilson concurred with those findings.
In essence, each side cancelled the other out by providing a built-in defense. Fire commanders could argue that Goldstein built a structure that allowed the blaze to spread quickly into a deadly inferno. But Goldstein could counter that it was fire commanders, not he, who sent crews into harm’s way with insufficient training, equipment and leadership. Proving either side’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was an unlikely proposition at best, authorities said.
Wilson said the case is probably best handled in civil court, where relative blame can be considered and assigned. Lawsuits already have been filed against Goldstein and his store by families of the nine firefighters and several former firefighters who battled the blaze. The city is immune from damages because it already has paid full benefits to the fallen firefighters’ families under workers’ compensation laws.
Thomas declined to comment last week on the outcome of the investigations. But Randy Hutchinson, who lost his brother, Capt. Billy Hutchinson, in the fire, said he will continue to fight for charges to be brought against Thomas and others for their roles in the blaze. Randy Hutchinson and relatives of Capt. Louis Mulkey, who also died, have expressed little faith that Charleston police investigators even considered negligence by officials at their sister agency.
The thick binder of materials police presented to Wilson contain very little information concerning the actions of firefighters. Mullen said that is because others with greater expertise in fire ground tactics already were studying the actions in great depth. Police consulted regularly with the city’s fire review team and explored every angle, including the possibility of criminal negligence on the Fire Department’s part, he said.
“We looked at everything,” Mullen said.
Police and SLED, helped by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, devoted much time to trying to find the cause and origin of the fire. The likely cause remains a carelessly tossed cigarette near the store’s loading dock, but investigators never proved that to be a certainty.
They spent months testing evidence, studying burn patterns and interviewing past and present employees, records show. Their most promising lead seemed to be a store worker who was at the loading dock shortly before the blaze started. He told inconsistent stories about who he was with and where he had extinguished his cigarette, records show.
Under pressure from police, the worker finally admitted during a July 2007 interview that he had lied to investigators because he was scared of getting blamed for the fire. The truth, he told police, was he didn’t know what became of the cigarette he flicked out the window of a truck as he left the site. He agreed to take a lie detector test and showed no signs of deception when asked if he had intentionally started the fire or knew who did cause the blaze. That left police right back at square one.
Finding the responsible party proved an elusive task. The loading dock was a known smoking area for employees, and investigators found “countless cigarette butts floating in several inches of water” when they examined the site shortly after firefighters extinguished the blaze, according to a SLED report.
“There was just no way to conclusively say that one person flipped the cigarette that started the fire or what actually occurred to start the fire,” Mullen said. “And that was the conclusion of everyone involved.”
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