City Won’t Face Charges in Deaths of 3 Workers

The district attorney’s office will not file manslaughter charges against the city of Pasadena in connection with a July 12, 1990, electrical vault explosion that killed three workers.

The office investigated the blast to determine if Pasadena’s Water and Power Department should be held criminally liable for failure to properly supervise, train or equip the workers sent into the underground vault to repair a 17,000-volt line. No evidence of such failure was found, said Deputy Dist. Atty. David Guthman.

Guthman said the workers either mistook a 4,000-volt line for the 17,000-volt line or did not realize the smaller voltage line was energized when it exploded.