The Brooklyn district attorney’s office has opened a criminal investigation into the building collapse in Flatbush on Wednesday that left eight people dead, including two children, the authorities said.
The inquiry was in its earliest stages on Thursday: It was initially delayed as search and rescue teams scoured the rubble of the collapsed three-story building in the pouring rain.
The Brooklyn prosecutors were conducting the criminal inquiry with the city’s Department of Investigation and Department of Buildings, officials said.
The district attorney, Eric Gonzalez, announced the inquiry in a statement on Wednesday night, hours after the collapse.
“We are working closely with the Department of Buildings and our law enforcement partners to determine whether any criminal conduct contributed to this tragedy,” Mr. Gonzalez said in the statement.
The collapse of the building, at 1321 Flatbush Avenue, occurred at around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, when the structure — which was described in city records as containing four apartments and commercial space on the ground floor — caved into a hole apparently created by a construction site next door. The Fire Department arrived within a minute, officials said, and hundreds of emergency responders began scouring the site.
It was not clear why the building, which stood near the intersection of Bedford and Flatbush Avenues in Flatbush, collapsed.
In addition to those killed in the collapse, 18 people were injured, including four firefighters. By Thursday afternoon, the rescue work had concluded, with officials saying there were no more victims under the wreckage. The Buildings Department and the police then took over work at the site.
The Buildings Department said that the developers of the adjacent construction site had an active permit for excavation and foundation work, and that the agency’s engineers were conducting structural stability inspections of nearby buildings.
A detailed 311 complaint, filed in the hours after the collapse, raised concerns about how the construction work might have played a role in the disaster. Although it was unclear who made the complaint, its substance suggested that the caller had engineering experience and knowledge of the excavation plans.
Two law enforcement officials said the complaint would be one area of focus for the criminal inquiry. The Buildings Department said it was also investigating the complaint, which it said had been made “by a member of the public.”
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“I am requesting that D.O.B. investigate whether excavation at 2625 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, contributed to the collapse of the adjacent three-story brick building,” read the complaint, which was logged in the department’s Building Information System.
The complaint included a description of the excavation-plan drawings and appeared to give investigators leads for their inquiry.
“My concern is that the subcontractor may have excavated too much of the area along the neighboring foundation at once,” the complaint said. “Please compare the approved drawings with the work performed in the field.”
The complaint also urged the investigators to examine how the subcontractor had accounted for the reported sandy soil and high groundwater at the site.
“I believe the collapse may have been preventable,” the complaint read. “Please determine whether the excavation sequence, the extent of foundation exposure or the soil and groundwater conditions contributed to the collapse.”
The complaint did not identify any subcontractor by name.
On Thursday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the city’s investigation was focused on both the building that collapsed and the construction site. The city has identified “five entities” associated with the project, he said, and the Department of Buildings had begun sweeps of about 100 other sites connected to the groups to ensure the public’s safety. City officials declined to name the five entities they had identified.
Prosecutors often conduct investigations into similar construction accidents in tandem with city agencies, who typically take a leading role.
Earlier this year, prosecutors in Manhattan opened a criminal inquiry into what had led columns inside a large residential conversion project in Midtown to buckle, prompting evacuations and an emergency response. That investigation is continuing.
In 2023, prosecutors with the Brooklyn district attorney’s office secured the conviction of a Sunset Park construction-company operator after a worker died at a project site.
The worker was part of a team removing a one-story industrial building in Sunset Park and replacing it with a four-story manufacturing and community building that included an underground garage nine feet below the first floor.
Prosecutors said workers had told the owner of the construction company, Jiaxi Liu, that a rear wall was unstable and additional support was needed, and a resident of the building had complained that her patio and garage had caved in.
Still, prosecutors said, Mr. Liu never stopped work, and did not notify the Buildings Department of the deteriorating conditions.
Days later, in September 2018, a support system of an existing wall collapsed, trapping Mr. Almonte under thousands of pounds of debris.
Mr. Liu was sentenced to two to four years in prison. The foreman on the project was convicted of criminal mischief, and two others pleaded guilty in the case.
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