South LA fireworks blast: 26 households each receive $2K after being impacted by LAPD's detonation
SOUTH LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilman Curren Price on Thursday announced that the nonprofit Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles is giving $2,000 in cash assistance to 26 households in South Los Angeles impacted by a destructive fireworks explosion set off by a police bomb squad.
"The Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles was designed to rapidly respond to crisis, and we activated immediately after the explosion, in partnership with the Mayor's Office and Councilmember Curren Price," said Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles President and CEO Deidre Lind.
The detonation sent 17 residents and first responders to hospitals, destroyed a bomb squad truck and damaged 22 residences, 13 businesses and 37 vehicles. Since the explosion, evacuated victims have been provided with access to housing, funds to satisfy their basic needs, and three meals a day.
A preliminary investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives' National Response Team found that the Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad significantly underestimated, based on a visual assessment, the weight of explosive material being loaded into the truck for detonation.
"Nothing can undo the trauma that upended the lives of these families, but we can lift them up while more help is on the way," Garcetti said Thursday. "These funds are just a stop-gap as we expedite more substantial relief, and we will continue to do everything in our power to help heal those who have been impacted."
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Price's office is paying for hotel accommodations in downtown Los Angeles as temporary housing for tenants severely impacted by the explosion.
Price on Wednesday announced a $1 million emergency fund using his office's Environmental Equity and Reimagining Public Safety dollars, and will provide long-term housing, repairs and financial assistance to residents whose homes were damaged by the June 30 blast.
"It should never have happened in the first place, and it is clear that the city is at fault in this explosion. But the damage and destruction has been done, and it is now time to restore our families and rebuild our community,'' Price said.
Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles and several people who phoned in to the Police Commission meeting Tuesday called for Moore to be fired and for the city to pay reparations to residents.
"There's no reason, there's no excuse, there's no rationale. You do not detonate explosives in a neighborhood, and we believe, as so many believe, that if this had been another neighborhood, not a working-class Black and brown neighborhood in South L.A., they would not have detonated those explosives," BLM-LA's Paula Minor said. "We stand up, we are insistent, we say over and over: Chief Moore must go."
South LA fireworks blast: Explosive material exceeded capacity of containment truck, LAPD says
The councilman said his fund will give displaced residents housing, help them with home repairs -- including broken windows, plumbing and structural repairs -- as well as provide $10,000 no-strings-attached grants to 25 households that have been pre-identified as being severely impacted.
City News Service contributed to this report.
