The Little Village apartment where 10 children died in a fire will remain vacant until at least December while the landlord tries to figure out if the building can be repaired and officials continue investigating the cause of the blaze.
The landlord, Merced Gutierrez, appeared Thursday morning in Cook County Circuit Court after the city filed more than 40 code violations against the property where the children were having a sleepover last week when the fire broke out. Gutierrez, 80, sat next to a relative and said nothing during the brief hearing while his attorney and the city agreed to temporarily reopen the property Friday morning to allow insurance agents to inspect the damage.
Gutierrez is set to return to court Dec. 6, and will be required to keep the building vacant and secured until then, according to a court order. City inspectors will go back into the building Dec. 4.
Before Thursday’s hearing, Gutierrez and a relative declined to comment. His attorney, Anthony Peraica, said Gutierrez is “extremely saddened” by the children’s deaths. Peraica noted that his client had made repairs on the property about a year ago after the city previously cited him for code violations.
“We categorically deny that there were any violations certainly that were brought to attention or witnessed by Mr. Gutierrez,” Peraica said.
Two buildings sit on the property and were involved in the fire; six of the violations filed after the Aug. 26 fatal fire were specifically issued for a rear building where the children were having a sleepover when the fire started. The citations call for Gutierrez to do things such as repair building damages and post his contact information on the property, according to city records. The citations were issued to make sure the now-vacant building was secured.
The rest of the violations filed after the fire were issued for the front building.
As of Thursday, the cause of the fire remained “undetermined” pending further investigations, according to the Fire Department. The cause and manner of deaths for all 10 children — who ranged in age from 3 months to 16 years old — are also pending.
There were no survivors of the fire that started in an enclosed back porch in the rear building in the 2200 block of South Sacramento Avenue, where all 10 children were sleeping. The children were first cousins and one close family friend.
The children were identified as Amayah Almaraz, 3 months; Alanni Ayala, 3; Gialanni Ayala, 5; Ariel Garcia, 5; Giovanni Ayala, 10; Xavier Contreras, 11; Nathan Contreras, 13; Adrian Hernandez, 14; Cesar Contreras, 14; and Victor Mendoza, 16.
Fire officials initially said there was no evidence of a smoke detector in the unit with the sleeping children, but they later reported that remains of what officials believe was a smoke detector without a working battery was found at the scene, according to a tweet from the Chicago Fire Department.
Peraica said they were looking into information they received that the smoke detector had been disabled because of the noise it was making.
The city last inspected the building July 3 and found violations ranging from graffiti outside the apartment where the children were sleeping to an excessive number of extension cords in all the units, according to city records. Bill McCaffrey, spokesman for the city’s Law Department, said the inspection was requested by Chicago police.
Another inspection took place June 8 after a tenant complained, said Gregg Cunningham, a spokesman for the Buildings Department. Two electrical code citations were issued after an extension cord was found from the rear building to the main apartments. The second violation found electrical grounding that caused a basement tenant to get shocked from a tub faucet.
Gutierrez has owned the property for at least 29 years, according to Cook County records. He did not have document leases with any of the tenants, and Peraica described him as old-fashioned. Gutierrez had been in the legal process of trying to evict the family from the apartment where the children were sleeping.
Gutierrez had faced past building violations for the property. In October 2015, city inspectors cited him for not having a smoke detector in the same unit where the fire started, according to city records. The case was given an administrative hearing, where the landlord showed the unit in question had been fixed, Cunningham said.
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Peraica said Gutierrez had made repairs after the previous building citations. The Gutierrez family had been working with police to address concerns about activity taking place around the property, Peraica said.
“Mr. Gutierrez did everything he could to run a good building,” Peraica said.
As the investigation into the fire continues, the Little Village community has been mourning the children. Last weekend, a public memorial service took place for six of the children. Services for the four other children have not been publicly announced.
baiduhai’s Elyssa Cherney contributed.
Twitter @ElviaMalagon
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