Three deputies were killed on Friday in an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Training Academy in the Department of the County of Los Angeles, the agency’s most deadly incident for more than 160 years.
MPs with detail explosive criminal fires, an elite unit of the Sheriff department, moved ammunition in the training center car park around 7:30 am when the explosion occurred.
The deputies were identified on Friday evening as DESTS. Joshua Kelley-Eklund, Victor Lemus and William Osborn. They had served respectively 19, 22 and 33 years old with the department, the authorities said.
From left to right, the Sheriff department of the County of Los Angeles Det. Victor Lemus, Joshua Kelley-Eklund and William Osborn.
(County sheriff department)
The Sheriff’s department is currently investigating an apartments in the Bay Street Bloc 800 in Santa Monica as part of the explosion, according to the department spokesperson Nishida. The three deputies killed in the explosion answered a call to help the Santa Monica police service at the complex on Thursday.
The explosion is the subject of an investigation such as negligence homicide, which could lead to accusations against the person who made or stored the aircraft, said sources of application of the Times.
Friday afternoon, the Santa Monica police service evacuated residents of the building on rue Bay Street, while the authorities continue to search for the site any additional explosive material, Nishida said. The bomb team of the FBI and Los Angeles police department helps the investigation. The alcohol, tobacco, firearm and explosives office should conduct a federal investigation into the cause of the explosion.
A procession leaves the Biscailuz training center after three sheriff deputies were killed after an explosion in the establishment on Friday in East Los Angeles.
(CARLIN STIEHL / LOS Angeles Times)
“They are the best of the best,” said Sheriff Robert Luna about the Agency’s Special Application Office. “And the people who work on our criminal fire details, they have years of training. … They are fantastic experts, and unfortunately, I lost three today.”
He said it would take time – maybe weeks or months – to investigate the incident.
Osborn, who joined the Sheriff department in 1992, was described as “one of the [the] Holder bombs technicians regularly reached a new challenge ”in a press release. He is survived by his wife, Det. Shannon Rincon, four sons and two daughters.
Kelley-Eklund joined the Sheriff department in 2006 and left his wife behind him, Jessica Eklund, and their seven children. Before joining the fire fires, he worked as an investigator of narcotics and murders as well as as a training agent on the field which supervised new deputies.
Lemus comes from a family of employees of the Sheriff department, including his wife, det. Nancy Lemus; The SGT of the sisters. Belen Lemus, assistant Perla Lemus and keeps Asst. Wendy Lemus; and the brother-in-law SGT. Robert Catalan. He joined the Department in 2003 and was known for his ability to train deputies and notable arrests involving career criminals. He leaves behind three girls.
A grenade was recovered Thursday at the Santa Monica apartments complex, a city police officer told Times.
Michael Kellman, who lives in the building, told Times that a tenant colleague called the police on Thursday after discovering a bag of grenades hidden in his storage unit.
She has lived in the building for several years and thinks that the bag has been left by the former occupier, he said. The authorities returned to his unit on Friday to travel the apartment for any remaining explosive.
The bomb team picks up potential explosives in the region daily, but it is a situation that is still heavy with danger because it is difficult to assess the stability of materials and their age, the sources of application of the Times said.
After the explosion, the LAPD bomb team responded to the scene to help make any other potential explosive element. The authorities took several hours to finish the process, Luna said.
Ambulances arrive Friday morning at the Biscailuz Center Training Academy.
(CARLIN STIEHL / LOS Angeles Times)
The employees told Times that they had heard a massive boom around 7:30 am from the parking lot where the sheriff’s bomb team keeps its vehicles. They heard glass breaking and shouting.
Rich Pippin, President of the Assn. For the assistant sheriffs of Los Angeles, described it as “worse day in the history of the Sheriff’s Department of the County of Los Angeles”.
“You never get up in the morning while waiting for this kind of news, never, and unfortunately, as often as we take care of this, it does not become easier,” he said. “It never becomes easier. It hurts. ”
Friday evening, hundreds of people gathered in the street outside the East Training Center so that a procession honors the female officers.
Three coffins draped in American flags were loaded in trucks to be transported to the medical examiner of the County of Los Angeles around 5 p.m., a massive American flag was hoisted between two scales of fire trucks for the procession to pass, while dozens of members of the law application looked in a dark way.
In Radio Communications examined by the Times, a sheriff distributor told units that there was an “explosion with three down”. Later, she said that the sheriff’s arms team leader said the investigators should “not approach” the scene.
The next day, officials covered the breath zone with a large tarpaulin as they collected evidence and worked to make the aircraft safe. About 25 meters from the establishment, the glass was dispersed in the parking lot from the windows of a SUV cruiser which was blown by the explosion. A helicopter of a sheriff went around the area while several emergency vehicles extended into the installation.
At one point, the video of the scene showed a bomb technician in an explosion costume approaching the site and by removing equipment before returning to the region where the investigators collected evidence.
Ed Nordskog, a former member of the details of the Department’s criminal fire explosives and a veteran of the 34-year-old department, said that the agency’s bomb and criminal fire unit was one of the largest and busiest in the United States. The team receives daily calls to manage the military ammunition which extend from the modern era to the First World War, as well as commercial explosives, exploding the dynamite of mining operations, suspicious packages and homemade or improvised articles.
“All have different dangerous aspects,” he said. “It is a job that requires at least a year of formal training to be able to work, and several years of experience in the field to feel fully competent.”
The former sheriff of the county of La, Alex Villanueva, told KTLA-TV Channel 5 in an interview that detailed fire fires include part of the most experienced staff of the agency.
“The loss is simply amazing,” he said. “It will take a while to understand how it happened, why it happened, could he have been prevented.”
The explosion and the resulting deaths sent shock waves in the County of Los Angeles and aroused many unanswered questions. The flags in the county buildings were lowered to half of the mourning staff.
According to officials, two of the deputies who were killed were allocated to ensure security during the County Council meetings in downtown Los Angeles.
The supervisor of the County of La, Kathryn Barger, said that it had been “broken heart” by the situation and that the whole county was in mourning for the deputies and their families.
“These deputies went to work while waiting to go home and they did not do it,” said Barger. “I hope that the point to remember is that we should all remember to have compassion and empathy and give a break to the police.”
Jason Zabala, who works for the Swat team in the Sheriff department and was a colleague and friend of the deputies who died on Friday, echoed Luna’s comments according to which they were the “best of the best”. He was in shock, he said, his voice breaks by talking about his friends.
“I cannot think of really a greater honor than to die in the service of people,” he said. “This is why we register, and it is tragic, but I am sure that their families are proud of their service, like me.”
Friday, an assistant from the Sheriff of the county of the is outside the Biscailuz Center training academy.
(CARLIN STIEHL / LOS Angeles Times)
The dangers of the profession are not lost for those who wear the uniform or their families, said Zabala, but that does not prevent them from doing their job.
“You are doing this job for a reason. You don’t really think about day by day, until something like it happens, then you realize how much dangerous it is,” he said. “I know that our families are going through this. I know that my family probably goes through it every day. But we really like the work we do. ”
Tony Meraz, an assistant veteran of the sheriff who knew the three men killed in the explosion, said that their death left a void in the hearts of their friends, their families and the department that will never be filled.
“These three men are the kind of cops that if your beloved calls 911, you want them to appear, whether it is an active shooter, a traffic collision or because your mom is lost,” said Meraz. “They all left in the blink of an eye.”
The office of the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said on X that he had been informed of the explosion, and that the state had deployed survey staff of the office of the state fire commissioner to help determine what happened.
US Atty. General Pam Bondi described the situation a “horrible incident” in a statement on Friday and asked for prayers for the families of the deputies.
The Biscailuz Center Training Academy was used for assistant training from 1946 to 1984, when it was closed due to a lack of space. The 36,000 square feet training center was renovated and reopened in 2017. The installation is home to the special sheriff’s application office and the explosive details of criminal fires, including the BOMB Squad.
The explosion attracted several spectators to the edge of a perimeter erected by the deputies while they were continuing their investigation.
Luisa Lopez, an employee of Meddso, a sheet manufacturing installation, said that their machines had obscured the sound of the explosion, but she became aware of the accident when the authorities began to run to the establishment.
“When we heard all the police noise, we didn’t think about it because they pass [by] All the time, ”she said.
Richard Montoya, who lives about a quarter of a quarter of the explosion area, said that he and his children had been shaken by three successive explosions that shook his house. At first, he thought that the explosion could have been fireworks, which are common in the neighborhood after July 4.
But he said he had realized that it was not fireworks because it was stronger, like a small earthquake.