Cal Fire employee charged with rapes; claim alleges lengthy assault occurred at station
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A man who worked as a firefighter and paramedic at a Cal Fire station in Riverside County has been charged with raping three women, at least one of them while on duty — and the alleged victim in that incident says the agency shares responsibility for letting it happen.The woman, listed as Jane Doe in a civil claim filed this week, said she arrived at Station 96 in Temecula just after 10 one evening last November to visit a man she’d met online.According to the woman’s claim, David Renteria, 51, greeted her at the entrance and the two walked to a shed at the back of the property.The woman’s attorney, David Ring, said his client had no reason not to trust Renteria: They were at a fire station after all, and there were others just inside.“It sounds like a pretty safe situation to go over there in the first place,” Ring said.“It turned out not to be.”She wouldn’t leave until sunrise the following morning, according to the civil tort claim, which often precedes a lawsuit.Over roughly six hours on the evening of Nov.
6, the claim alleges, Renteria raped the woman repeatedly.At one point, according to the claim, he forced her to walk naked through the main station, photographed her in his firefighting gear and told her he would hurt her children if she tried to leave.
Other firefighters, the claim alleges, were on duty inside the building the entire time — apparently oblivious.“How did this happen?” said Ring.
“How could this take place over the course of five or six hours without anyone intervening or knowing about it?” The tort claim alleges the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and state officials share responsibility because they “negligently hired, supervised and retained” Renteria.Renteria was arrested at his Placentia home April 24 following a four-month investigation by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Anti-Human Trafficking...