Palisades Fire mistrial doesnt change guilty verdict for politicians

The Palisades Fire trial ended with a hung jury.But for locals, the verdict has been clear since January 7, 2025: State and local officials are guilty of negligence.Federal prosecutors had a familiar story to tell about Jonathan Rinderknecht, the 29-year-old Uber driver charged with lighting a fire that, six days later, ignited another fire that burned down the Pacific Palisades. Rinderknecht is, supposedly, yet another lonely young man politically radicalized by social media seeking glory through a flashy act of class revenge.

“He blamed the rich, felt the world was unfair, wanted relief and sought violence,” as one prosecutor put it. This is a sadly common character: Luigi Mangioni with a less pleasing jawline.And when authorities originally announced the indictment, many news outlets dutifully presented the case as a fait accompli.

We’d obviously found our villain.That story hit a snag on Friday: Rinderknecht’s prosecution ended in a mistrial, with fully 10 of the 12 jurors dead set on acquitting.I grew up in the Palisades and directed a documentary about the fire based on interviews with dozens of victims.And the response from the many locals I’ve talked to about the mistrial is not righteous indignation: it’s a shrug.

Many see the Rinderknecht case as a sideshow that’s been cynically played up by city and state officials to absolve themselves of blame, to redirect public attention away from their own epic failures.“The government is trying to deflect blame to one individual –– unsuccessfully –– rather than taking responsibility for multiple massive governmental failures on so many levels,” says Alan Feld, who first spotted the fire.Local journalist Sue Pascoe thinks “the government desperately wants to blame this fire on someone and Jonathan became the scapegoat.” “Obviously they just wanted to put it on this guy to distract from the city’s response,” says Masha Pronicheva, who lost her house in the Alphabet Streets. ...