pge-california-wildfire-camp-fire-paradise-guilty-plea
This is what gets people pissed, proof that there are two systems of justice in this country:
Pacific Gas & Electric confessed on Tuesday to killing 84 people in a devastating 2018 wildfire that wiped out the northern California town of Paradise in November 2018.
Bill Johnson, PG&E’s CEO, entered guilty pleas on behalf of the company for 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from the fire, which was blamed on the company’s crumbling electrical grid...
PG&E has agreed to pay a maximum fine of $3.5m for its crimes in addition to $500,000 for the cost of the investigation. The San Francisco company will not be placed on criminal probation.
So just as there is qualified immunity for cops, apparently there is a similar immunity for corporate executives.
The board running this company made the conscious choice to pay themselves more rather than maintain their equipment as their license to operate specifies resulting in a predictable deterioration of said equipment that led to the fire(s), more than one fire started by the same cause.
And yet…
And yet, no executive was personally charged, fined or troubled in any manner by the legal and regulatory system.
They were allowed to plead guilty to “involuntary” manslaughter, rather than the voluntary manslaughter it actually was, and to get away with paying a fine that amounts to $46,666.67 per person they killed.
Yes they have to pay billions in damages, but they are getting off scot-free for killings themselves and the neglect that caused them. More than that, the same people are being allowed to run the company again if it ever gets out of bankruptcy. One wonders if the COVID money will wind up paying for a chunk of that.
Who says the system just needs a few tweaks, and it isn’t hopelessly corrupt and biased in favor of the wealthy?