The man who was arrested in connection with last week's deadly home explosion and fire in San Francisco's Sunset District has been charged with multiple felonies, the district attorney's office announced Wednesday.
Darron Price, 53, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, manufacturing a controlled substance, four counts of reckless burning, two counts of child endangerment and one count of elder abuse, according to the district attorney's office.
"As the Outer Sunset neighborhood works to rebuild following last week’s sudden explosion, we will join their efforts by standing with the victims and the community in seeking justice,” District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said in a statement. "We must send a clear message that the manufacture of dangerous drugs will not be tolerated in San Francisco; this activity is not only dangerous for the individuals involved but entire neighborhoods as this case so tragically demonstrates."
Investigators sifting through the rubble of the destroyed home on 22nd Avenue found evidence of illegal narcotics manufacturing, according to the district attorney's office.
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"Investigators recovered suspected butane tanks, ovens, and other materials consistent with processing hash oil with volatile solvents," the district attorney's office said in a statement. "Investigators also tested a jar of suspected hash oil and found it contained acetone and other dangerous and highly flammable solvents."
During his arraignment Wednesday afternoon, Price didn't say a word. The judge granted a request by Price's attorney to delay the hearing until Friday.
Public defender Sierra Villaran said Price will be pleading not guilty to all charges and she will be asking the judge to release Price on bail.
"Obviously we vehemently deny these accusations," Villaran said.
Jenkins said they will fight to keep Price in jail, saying he poses a public risk.
"We are not talking about somebody growing marijuana and plants in plant form," Jenkins said. "We are talking about something that was extremely flammable and very dangerous."
The district attorney's office also asked the judge to block Price from seeing his two teenage children who lived with him, saying they don't want him to influence their accounts of what was going on in the home.
For now, the judge denied that request after the public defender argued that Price and his children are all grieving over the death of Rita Price, who was killed in the fire and who neighbors say was Darron Price's wife.
"I think that it is horrific what his family is going through and what he is going through and the amount of pain that they are processing while having Mr. Price in custody," Villaran said. "Impossible to describe."
