The family of a 10-year-old boy who died in an apartment fire this month in Chicago filed a lawsuit, alleging the building owners failed to provide working smoke detectors. The suit claims apartment landlords failed to properly test and maintain smoke detectors in common areas and provide tenants with functional smoke detectors prior to a Nov. 9 blaze that killed Ans Khan and injured 11 others, including his two younger siblings and parents.
Over the past decade, the city issued more than 100 building code citations, including six smoke detector violations, to owners Mihai and Elena Horga for their building on the Northwest Side, said attorney Tim Cavanagh, who filed the suit.
“The sheer number of violations is very troubling and very telling,” Cavanagh said at a news conference. “It’s something that we’re going to look at … why the city of Chicago didn’t police this building better than it did.”
