EAST LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Flags are at half-staff throughout Los Angeles County Monday as the probe into an explosion that killed three veteran deputies at a sheriff’s department facility in East Los Angeles continued.
Memorial services are expected to be announced soon for the detectives killed in the blast on Friday, the LASD’s deadliest day since 1857 .
Meanwhile, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Kathryn Barger has directed that county flags be flown at half-staff in honor of detectives Joshua Kelley-Eklund, Victor Lemus and William Osborn.
The three Special Enforcement Bureau deputies had more than 70 years of combined experience with the department.
“There are no words to express the pain and sorrow we feel,” Sheriff Robert Luna said in a statement. “These heroes represented the best of our department, exemplifying courage, integrity and selfless service. This is not only a heartbreaking loss for their families, but for all of us.”
Luna called the department’s Special Enforcement Bureau, “The best of the best.”
“The individuals who work our arson explosives detail, they have years of training,” Luna said during a midday news conference Friday near the facility. “They are fantastic experts, and unfortunately, I lost three of them today.”
The blast was reported at 7:25 a.m. Friday at the Biscailuz Regional Training Center in the 1000 block of North Eastern Avenue, southwest of the interchange of the San Bernardino (10) and Long Beach (710) freeways, according to the Sheriff’s Information Bureau.
The detectives were killed when ordnance collected a day earlier from a Santa Monica apartment building storage bin exploded in the training center’s parking lot, according to news reports.
Luna said the site where the blast occurred was not rendered safe by investigators until late morning. He would not confirm reports about ordnance seized Thursday. However, on Friday, Santa Monica police, along with county and federal investigators, were seen searching an apartment complex in the 800 block of Bay Street, near Lincoln Boulevard.
A resident of that complex told KTLA5 that police and sheriff’s officials had been at the building Thursday to retrieve some old grenades that a tenant found in a storage unit, apparently left behind by a previous tenant. The search on Friday afternoon prompted an evacuation of at least part of that apartment complex as investigators swept the property for any additional potentially dangerous materials.
The sheriff’s department is investigating the apartment complex in connection with the explosion, department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida told the Los Angeles Times.
The three deputies killed in the blast responded to a call to assist the Santa Monica Police Department at the complex on Thursday, the newspaper reported. The explosion is being investigated as a negligent homicide, which could result in charges against the person who made or stored the device, law enforcement sources told The Times.
Luna called Friday’s blast “the largest loss of life for us as the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department since 1857.” That was when Sheriff James Barton and several members of his posse, including three deputies, were ambushed in present-day Santa Ana by criminals they were pursuing. Barton died just three weeks into his second term, according to a sheriff’s department online historical timeline.
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