Byline: Kevin Klose Washington Post and staff reports
The toll of dead in the Dupont Plaza Hotel fire climbed to 95 Friday as investigators collected evidence, including threatening letters sent to hotel executives several days before the New Year's Eve disaster at the hotel-casino where labor negotiations had broken down that afternoon.
The body of fire victim Beryl Spector, the 56-year-old Latham woman missing since the blaze, was identified positively through dental and other medical records late Friday.
Her husband, Sherman David Spector, called Albany Friday night to make funeral arrangements for his wife.
Puerto Rico's Justice Secretary Hector Rivera Cruz said more than 100 interviews with survivors, hotel staff and union members have taken place. "I don't have a specific suspect, but we are interested in investigating persons related to the (Teamsters) union, the hotel staff and administration, and guests," Rivera Cruz said.
The hotel's director, Bruce Shulman, Friday said senior Dupont executives had received anonymous "threatening" letters some days before the fire and that these have been turned over to police.
Gov. Rafael Hernandez Colon said again Friday that the investigation will encompass the "tense labor situation" at the hotel. Some guests said hotel employees had warned them that New Year's Eve was a time to stay away from the hotel and its casino.
Teamsters Local 901 leader Jose E. Cadiz said Friday any suggestion that the union had started the fire is "an outrage. There is no evidence at all to support this."
The union local is offering $15,000 reward for arrest and conviction of anyone who set the fire, Cadiz said.
He accused Dupont management of bringing on the labor troubles by initiating hardball bargaining tactics against a staff of loyal employees. He said that Brooke Thompson, director of operations at the Dupont and presumed dead, had been manager at a nearby hotel last year when another union struck for 42 days. He said Thompson had been hired to toughen up the Dupont's labor relations.
Officials of Hotel Systems International Inc. in Santa Monica, Calif., the hotel owners, refused to take a reporter's telephone calls Friday.
Throughout the day, investigators concentrated their search for bodies and evidence on the hotel's gutted ground floor containing a ballroom and poolside lounge and the mezzanine that included the casino and lobby.
Eric Labrador, athletic director from the town of Bayanon who is a civil defense volunteer, struggled with emotions as he described the scene near one of the casino's exit doors.
"They're packed together there, many bodies, horrible. Some are crumpled, some are sitting or piled up. Some have embraced each other," he said.
"They're trying to look for an exit," Labrador said, "and they don't find the exit..."
The fire began about 2:30 p.m. EST, minutes after the hotel's Teamsters unit of about 250 members had met there, unanimously rejected a "final" management contract offer and prepared to walk out at midnight.
By Friday night, 27 victims had been identified and efforts were under way to notify the next of kin. Authorities said they still have not determined how many people remain unaccounted for, but Police Superintendent Jose Lopez-Feliciano said the death toll may exceed 100.
Among the dead who have been identified is Secret Service Agent Manuel Merrero, of the agency's San Juan office, who apparently went to the hotel for dinner.
Hotel director Shulman said Friday that the 23-year-old hotel's safety features comply fully with Puerto Rican law. He praised the performance of his staff during the disaster.
Shulman said the hotel has water sprinklers in the kitchen, the boiler room and a downstairs linen room. There are smoke detectors in each of the three elevator shafts, alarms on each of the hotel's 21 floors and fire hoses in corridors, he said.
He acknowleged the hotel does not have sprinklers in its 423 guest rooms. Puerto Rican law does not require water sprinklers, and Hernandez Colon has said the law will be amended to require them.
Shulman denied reports by survivors that doors were locked to the casino on the mezzanine level, where many deaths occurred.
Hernandez Colon repeated Friday that authorities suspect arson. A union radio announcement had warned that "New Year's Eve at the Dupont Plaza would not be pleasant," the governor said in a television interview.
Later, at a religious service for victims, the governor noted, "In any labor conflict there are always two sides, and the investigation started from there because that is most logical."
Leaders of Teamsters Local 901 said they were "outraged" by Hernandez Colon's remarks Friday and Thursday, when he first questioned the union's conduct during the final weeks of contract negotiations.
Union leader Cadiz and local president Rene Rodriguez denied there was any implied threat in the radio commercial pointed to by the governor. The Spanish-language ad ran several times a day for two weeks before the fire.
Rodriguez said the hotel lacked important safety features and that three smaller fires in the hotel during Christmas week were the result of "a problem with maintenance."
At the time the contract talks broke down, the hotel's "final offer" was for a 50-cent-an-hour wage increase at increments of 10 cents every six months over the life of a 30-month contract. Under the old contract, hourly wages at the Dupont start at $3.37 and go above $7.
The union was demanding an increase of $1.50 in a three-year contract. But, the union leaders said, the wage pact was not the main unresolved issue. They said they have settled other contracts recently for as little as 90 cents over three years.
The sticking point at the Dupont, they said, was a management proposal to reclassify some workers into different job categories. Rodriguez said this could lead to hiring non-union workers and the loss of at least 90 Teamster jobs in peak tourist season, and many more in the off-season.
Survivors, many of whom escaped the fire in bathing suits and other vacation clothing, were given up to $100 each Friday by the Dupont to help tide them over. The government also provided up to $300. Many guests have departed, leaving behind credit cards and other valuables. The hotel has been sealed off until the investigation is completed, but remaining tourists hope to get possessions back in a few days.
One hundred and nineteen were hospitalized after the fire. By Friday, 71 had been discharged, and 48 remain in hospitals, eight with serious burns, according to Sila Calderon, chief of staff to the governor.
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