The three Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies who died in a training facility explosion last week, were killed in an accident, the LA County Medical Examiner’s Office said on Monday.
The coroner’s report said the manner of death for Detectives Joshua Kelley-Eklund, Victor Lemus and William Osborn was an accident, adding the seasoned arson/explosives investigators all had “multiple blast injuries.”
Their bodies are now ready to be released from the coroner’s officer to the grieving families as they plan for the memorials.
The report also noted their place of death was the sheriff’s department training facility, alluding to the disastrously powerful impact of the blast.
Law enforcement sources told NBC Los Angeles last week that the three deputies killed in the explosion were dealing with small “military-style devices” that were inspected or X-rayed. But it was not immediately clear what happened right before the blast.
The explosion happened when those devices were brought out into the parking lot of the training facility in East LA.
The deputies were thrown a significant distance from the blast, the sources said.
Detective Kelly-Eklund, Lemus and Osborn were all assigned to Special Enforcement Bureau’s Arson Explosives Detail, an elite team within the largest sheriff’s department in the nation.
Kelley-Eklund, a 20-year veteran with the LASD, iss survived by his wife, Jessica Eklund, and their seven children.
Lemus, 2-year veteran with the sheriff’s department, is survived by his wife, Sheriff’s Department Detective Nancy Lemus, and three daughters.
Osborn, a 33-year veteran, was described as “one of tenured bomb technicians regularly relied upon when faced with a new challenge” with a broad range of experience.
The LASD said memorial service details will be announced in the coming days.