Court battle looms Wednesday morning between the city, the police and the district attorney over how to proceed in the St. Francis Hotel matter

The historic St. Francis Hotel suffered a catastrophic fire a week ago in the early morning hours of Friday, Nov. 1.

Firefighters battled the stubborn blaze for hours. Later that day, the Susanville Police Department, following information revealed on a security camera, interviewed and arrested a suspect it alleges set fire to the building. Then the Susanville City Council determined the burnt remains of the hotel pose a danger to city residents and the city made plans to demolish the building — to begin at 8 a.m. yesterday, according to social media posts.

The Lassen County District Attorney is responsible to prosecute the case against the suspect, so yesterday, Friday, Nov. 8, Don Brand, Lassen County deputy district attorney, filed an ex parte (emergency) application asking the court to prevent the city’s planned demolition of the St. Francis Hotel in order to preserve the evidence in the case.

Lassen County Superior Court Judge Mark Nareau scheduled a status conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13, in Department 1. Nareau ordered the hotel “shall not be demolished, destroyed or materially altered in any way until the completion of the pending investigation or until further order of this court.”

Lassen County District attorney Melyssah Rios said her office works with law enforcement in every case to collect and preserve the evidence.

And she said her office not only has not yet received the arson investigator’s report, “the city has not communicated with my office at all about this case. I don’t mean the police department — I mean city officials have not at all communicated with my office.”

Rios said it’s vital all the evidence be preserved.

“We have to do that, we have to take steps to preserve the evidence,” Rios said. “We do that as a normal course of business, so I completely agree with and support Mr. Brand’s decision to file that because we don’t want to lose the risk of there being more evidence.

“Additionally, nobody from my office has been asked to come down and take a peek to see if we have everything. None of my investigative staff has been afforded the opportunity to go down and view the scene.”

Rios doesn’t expect the issue to linger.

“We’ll put it all together,” she said, “but there might be things there (at the hotel) that we need to preserve. We don’t know yet because we don’t know what’s in the arson report.”

And Rios said she didn’t know anything about the city’s demolition plans.

“I understand they want to demolish it because it might pose a risk to damaging some of the other buildings if that wall collapses,” she said “and if it’s limited to that wall, it’s fine. But (reports made) it sound like a complete demolition.”

And although her office will prosecute the suspect, Rios also expressed concern about a fair trial for the accused.

“The defense also has a right to investigate and view the evidence and view the scene,” Rios said. “I don’t want to get in the position where’s it’s said we destroyed evidence that may have been exculpatory without the investigator’s opportunity to view it.”

When asked about cadaver dogs alerting in several locations in the building, Rios said, “I don’t know anything about that. Like I said, nobody with the city has communicated with me about this case. If there are bodies in there that are discovered through a demolition process, we want to send those bodies off for autopsy to determine the cause of death. That is an entirely different scenario versus if they were already dead and their bodies just happened to burn in the fire. We want to flush all that out.”

What’s in yesterday’s court filing?
According to the court record, the DA has filed two felony arson charges against the suspect, Tahnee Willow Orr, of Susanville.

According to California Penal Code section 451(d) — “A person is guilty of arson when he or she willfully and maliciously sets fire to or burns or causes to be burned or who aids, counsels, or procures the burning of, any structure, forest land or property,” and 452(c) “A person is guilty of unlawfully causing a fire when he recklessly sets fire to or burns or causes to be burned, any structure, forest land or property.”

Orr pleaded not guilty to the charges during a Monday, Nov. 4 arraignment. She waived the 10-day statutory requirement but did not waive the 60-day time rule regarding a preliminary hearing. The court ordered she be held without bail and set a preliminary hearing for 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20.

On Wednesday, Nov. 6, the city “initiated a code enforcement process to allow the city to abate the St. Francis Hotel and clear the site of the structure,” planned for Friday, Nov. 8.

According to the court file, “The St. Francis Hotel is an active crime scene. The office of the district attorney is broadly authorized to investigate crime scenes in the county of Lassen in furtherance of prosecuting criminal cases,” and according to the government code “the responsibility to ‘institute proceedings for the arrest of persons charged with or reasonably suspected of public offenses’” (rests with the DA). “This necessarily includes (the) responsibility to analyze evidence collected and preserved by law enforcement.

“The People have not yet received or reviewed a report from Cal Fire Arson and Bomb Squad Investigator Jason Stocklas who responded to the Saint Francis Hotel to conduct an arson investigation.

“Moreover, upon information and belief, the Department of Emergency Services has deployed a cadaver dog and handler to inspect the Saint Francis Hotel, which resulted in a hit on a few areas.

“The Saint Francis Hotel is central to an ongoing criminal investigation. Destruction or alteration of the structure could result in the loss of critical evidence necessary for prosecution. Allowing the structure to be demolished or materially altered before completion of the investigation would cause irreparable harm to the People’s ability to gather evidence and ensure a fair trial. The interest of justice in preserving the evidence outweighs any potential hardship or inconvenience to the property owner or the city.”

But hold on — that’s not all. There are other parties involved that have yet to be heard — Caltrans probably has issues with a lane of Main Street Uptown — Highway 36 to them — being closed for any length of time. The new owner of the doomed building probably has something to say about all this, as well. And the ugly elephant lurking over in the corner keeps asking “who’s going to pick up the tab — some estimate to be multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars — for the demolition?”