The New York City medical examiner has ruled a fatal Queens house fire a homicide, police said Friday night. No arrests had yet been made.
Police said the city’s fire marshal will determine the cause of the blaze, which ripped through all three stories of the building, and drew more than 230 firefighters to the scene. FDNY officials have previously said at least three people jumped from the building amid the fire, and two firefighters were briefly trapped inside when a stairwell collapsed.
The NYPD said Friday the investigation remains ongoing, and did not address how the medical examiner determined the deaths are a homicide.
A Gothamist review of building records shows 55 violations at 132-05 Avery Ave. going back decades, with 16 remaining open. Many of the violations are for allegedly illegal dwellings, and more recently for alleged gambling activity on the first floor. City officials told Gothamist they amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The girl, whom the NYPD identified Friday as Sihan Yang, was declared dead at the scene along with Chengri Cui, a 50-year-old man who also lived at the home.
A 61-year-old woman was also found dead, and a 63-year-old man was declared dead at a nearby hospital. They have not been identified pending family notification, police said Friday night.
Prior to the fire, the city buildings department had issued the most recent violation against the building in January, for an unlockable door, extension cords running through the hallways from the first floor up to the third floor, and holes in sheetrock throughout public hallways.
The building’s history of violations reaches back to at least 1998, for a record saying the building had been illegally converted from a two-family to four-family structure, and a doctor’s office had been converted into an apartment. The record reflects a $800 penalty but still lists the violation as “open.”
Several of the violations over the decades are for alleged illegal structures or dwellings.
"Building owners have an important legal requirement to keep their buildings in a safe and code compliant condition at all times,” buildings department spokesperson Andrew Rudansky told Gothamist earlier this month. “Prior to [the] fire, the owners of 132-05 Avery Ave. had been issued hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties for unsafe unpermitted alterations, illegal occupancy and for leaving the building open and unguarded to the public.”
He said a multi-agency investigation into the fatal fire was ongoing, and more enforcement actions were pending the results of the investigation.
A violation in 2003 says the building had been converted into more units than were allowed. Another in 2010 accuses the building owners of installing a shed without a permit, though that violation was later dismissed. A 2020 violation says walls were illegally erected to create bedrooms, water and waste lines for a toilet, and electrical wiring for lights. That violation also remains open, according to city records.
In 2020, the city issued a Class 1 violation — the most severe classification — for failing to comply with previous vacate orders.
In 2021, the building was included in a Department of Buildings “enforcement bulletin,” saying its owner at the time, Dechang Yee, had been issued $302,500 in total penalties for having converted a two-family home with a doctor’s office on the first floor into a seven-family home. The DOB confirmed those penalties were never paid.
A violation in 2023 says a DOB officer “observed 1st floor rear is being occupied as a gambling establishment” in the space meant to be a doctor’s office.
Following the fire, a full vacate order was issued for the property, along with an immediate emergency declaration for full demolition of the building.
Gothamist has been unable to reach Yee, the person listed as the owner in most building violation records.
A FDNY spokesperson told Gothamist earlier this month that the property owners don’t take steps to tear down the building, the city will hire contractors to do the work.
