First, our prayers go out to the families of Detective Joshua Kelley-Eklund, Detective Victor Lemus and Detective William Osborn, who fell in the line of duty yesterday. All were respected and honourable officers, who received great praise from their command officers.
We’re going to do a recap on the explosion at the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department (LASD) training facility, based on what is known information from various media reports.
Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times, within hours of the explosion and deaths of the officers, published an article in which they stated the following:
- the LASD had obtained a search warrant for an apartment complex in the 800 block of Bay Street in Santa Monica, where these same 3 fallen officers had been called on Thursday to assist the Santa Monica Police Department. The LASD, along with FBI, ATF and LAPD Bomb Disposal Unit was searching the apartment complex again for any additional explosives that may be present
- the explosion was being investigated as a negligent homicide, which would result in charges against the person who made or stored the device. Device meaning it was an improvised explosive of some kind. This is based on law enforcement sources quoted in the LA Times
- a city police officer, who we can only only assume was Santa Monica Police, told the LA Times that a grenade was recovered from the Santa Monica apartment complex on Thursday. Michael Kellman, who lives nearby the complex told KTLA TV, that a tenant called the police after discovering a storage unit with old grenades that had been left by a former tenant – who Kellman claimed was a veteran.
There’s a big difference between a device and a grenade, especially when law enforcement is talking about “making and storing the device” to the media.
In a 3:32 pm update on the NBC LA website, Eric Leonard, reported that the 3 deputies were dealing with small “military-style devices” that were inspected or X-rayed.
NBC LA, during its 8:53 pm update, reported that a renter had found explosive devices inside a storage unit at a Santa Monica residence, which we believe to be the apartment complex the LA Times reported earlier in the day. LASD told NBC LA “it’s unclear if the devices found yesterday (Thursday) have any correlation to Friday’s explosion.
Remember these same 3 fallen officers were called to the Santa Monica location by the Santa Monica Police Department on Thursday.
During the search of the complex and surrounding areas, 2 hand grenades were found, that were determined to be inert, and removed from the area, according to Santa Monica Police.
NBC LA, a few hours later (9:35pm), reported that before the blast, the deputies were “examining several explosive devices, including items possibly collected from Santa Monica, in the parking lot.”
According to NBC LA, they were looking inside the devices when they exploded and the impact of the blast threw them out of the area.
Legal analyst Royal Oakes told MBC Los Angeles that “if a person or people are determined to be responsible for the explosive devices, there could be possible murder charges.”
Now, we’ve shifted from the initial possible negligent homicide charges to possible murder charges.
There is a lot to unpack in this explosion, and things will become clearer as the various agencies and law enforcement departments investigate, but our concern is that this is not swept quietly under the rug, like the Palm Springs Fertility Center bombing, the Idaho Mountains sniper, and the Minnesota political assassinations. In the Palm Springs attack, one of the planners escaped to Poland and was extradited back to the US only to commit suicide in his jail cell.
