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LaVista apartment residents threaten lawsuit
Residents of the burned apartments at the Reserve at LaVista Walk announced they plan to file a class-action lawsuit against the apartment's owners. They claim the owners knew of problems with the fire suppression system as well as other issues, but ignored them.
ATLANTA - Residents of the apartments at the Reserve at LaVista Walk announced Saturday they plan to file a class action lawsuit against the apartment's owners soon.
The residents claim the owners knew about the problems with the fire suppression system, as well as other ongoing issues, and ignored them, leading to the tragedy.
Reserve at LaVista Walk apartment fire: Risk of collapse keeps firefighters, residents out
Many of them say the lawsuit is not about getting paid, but about holding who they claim to be a negligent landlord accountable.
"What we're looking to do is, in the next couple of days, file a class action lawsuit on behalf of all of these people behind me," said resident Alissa Green.
Residents gathered outside the Reserve at LaVista Walk to announce plans to sue the building's owners.
Green was joined by other displaced residents outside of their former home on Lavista Road Saturday. She's lived in her apartment since May and says she lost irreplaceable items.
"This shouldn't have happened to us and we should have been protected better from this," Green said. "I lost every piece of art I have done since I was 12 years old. I lost my family's recipes that [have] been passed down for almost 100 years."
"It is a loss for everybody," said resident of three years, Shanaya Dessin.
Dessin warned potential renters about the broken fire sprinkler system in a Google Review posted a month ago. At the time, she wrote the whole building was at risk of being engulfed one day.
Google Review for the Reserve at LaVista Walk
Attorneys for Dessin, Green and the others say they've found evidence of the sprinkler system not working.
"In June of 2022, two control valves were diagnosed as being broken. They also knew that there were corroded sprinkler heads and there were other issues," said Attorney Doug Dean.
Yet last week, Atlanta Fire Rescue Chief Rod Smith told the media the reason the sprinklers didn't go off was because the fire started in the roof.
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LaVista Walk Apartment: Why did fire spread so quickly?
The Atlanta Fire Department wants to find out why the Reserve at LaVista Walk Apartments burned so quickly leaving hundreds of people without a home. Investigators want to determine when the building was last inspected and was the sprinkler system working.
"A typical fire will burn upwards, where you will have activation of the alarms as well as the sprinkler system. However, this one started in the roof, so it was a complete anomaly," he explained. "So, the systems will not detect that until later into the alarm."
Reserve at LaVista Walk apartment fire: Why it spread so fast
But Dean claims even if that was true, the owners knowingly failed to block access to the roof where two suspects reportedly lit fireworks that likely ignited the blaze.
From left to right: Robert Stokes and Charnelle Gunn (Credit: Fulton County Sheriff's Office)
"This totally could have been prevented. There is no reason that people should have been allowed on the roof," said Dean.
FOX 5 attempted to reach out to the apartment owners Saturday for comment. They could not be reached by phone or email.