Last summer, a grenade exploded at an L.A. County Sheriff\u2019s Department training facility, killing three bomb squad detectives. Now, the L.A. County district attorney\u2019s office is considering whether to file criminal charges in their deaths. <\/p>\n
The sheriff\u2019s arson and explosives unit retrieved two abandoned grenades from the garage of a Santa Monica apartment complex on July 17. The explosives were then moved to the Biscailuz Center Training Academy in L.A., where one of the grenades detonated the next day, killing Dets. Victor Lemus, Joshua Kelley-Eklund and William Osborn<\/a> and marking the department\u2019s deadliest incident in more than 150 years.<\/p>\n Sheriff\u2019s homicide detectives, shortly after the explosion, focused their attention on a former military special operations member who allegedly left the grenades in a storage area of the Santa Monica complex, according to two law enforcement sources at the time. The apartment complex was where he or a significant other had lived, according to those sources.<\/p>\n Nicole Nishida, a Sheriff\u2019s Department spokesperson, confirmed that department detectives had submitted to the district attorney\u2019s office on April 23 a criminal investigation into the deadly grenade incident.<\/p>\n Information on who could be charged in the deputies\u2019 deaths or the handling of the explosives \u2014 or what charges they might face \u2014 was not available. But search warrants have focused on the source of the grenades.<\/p>\n In the days after the explosion, detectives and bomb technicians, using search warrants, combed a yacht and a storage lockup in Marina del Rey. A law enforcement robot was used to search a group of storage units in an alley behind the Shores apartment complex and could be seen removing items.<\/p>\n The yacht is tied to a former U.S. special operations member turned stunt coordinator, according to sources familiar with the investigation. <\/p>\n The explosion sparked a series of investigations into what happened that day, including an inquiry by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into the cause of the blast. Within the Sheriff\u2019s Department, there are also two criminal investigations underway \u2014 one into the deputies\u2019 deaths and one into the disappearance of a second grenade. After the blast, sheriff\u2019s officials said the second device was missing.<\/p>\n The ATF investigation has been completed but has not been made public because of the ongoing investigations, a law enforcement source said Tuesday. <\/p>\n In March, The Times revealed a third criminal investigation<\/a> was underway into the distribution of graphic crime scene photos of the detectives\u2019 bodies. A commander was relieved of duty in connection with that investigation.<\/p>\n A California Division of Occupational Safety and Health investigation into the explosion found that, leading up to the incident, there was a series of \u201cwillful\u201d safety violations by the Sheriff\u2019s Department, including failure to provide effective training and the presence of unattended explosives. That investigation resulted in eight citations and more than $350,000 in fines, according to records from the state agency reviewed by The Times. The Sheriff\u2019s Department said it had appealed the findings.<\/p>\n The deadly explosion started as a routine call, with the Sheriff\u2019s Department bomb squad members responding to the Santa Monica apartment complex after a resident found grenades, apparently left by a previous tenant, tucked away in their storage unit.<\/p>\n The explosives, described by law enforcement sources as military-grade hand grenades, were taken from the complex in the 800 block of Bay Street as the bomb squad assisted the Santa Monica police<\/a> in the call. <\/p>\n