Grenade missing after deadly LASD training facility explosion, sheriff says
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A grenade tied to last week's explosion that killed three Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives has not been found and remains missing, the sheriff said Friday.
Sheriff Robert Luna said two grenades were recovered from a Santa Monica apartment building storage unit last Thursday. One of those grenades exploded the following day, killing three sheriff's detectives, but the second grenade hasn't been found.
"Right now, there's a second grenade that we're not 100% sure where it's at," Luna said at a press conference at the Hall of Justice in downtown L.A.
Luna and Kenny Cooper, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Los Angeles office, urged anyone in the public who may spot what appears to be the device to avoid touching it and call 911.
Cooper said the investigation into last Friday's deadly explosion determined "definitively" that only one grenade detonated, and there is no sign of the second device. Luna said the Biscailuz Regional Training Center where the blast occurred has been thoroughly searched and there has been no public access to the facility since the explosion.
The ATF, which is handling the investigation, said the agency has searched a radius of more than 400 feet from the blast site repeatedly and found no device.
"I can tell you with clarity from a post-blast examination, that we know one device exploded," Cooper said. "We have not recovered any evidence from a second device on that scene."
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Investigators are also continuing their search into who owned the grenades. Search warrants were served on a boat and an apartment building garage in Marina del Rey.
The grenades were X-rayed and believed to be inert. They were transported by arson detectives to be destroyed at the sheriff's training facility in East L.A.
It's unclear what caused the blast, which killed Dets. Joshua Kelley-Eklund, Victor Lemus and William Osborn.
The men were described as elite members of the Special Enforcement Bureau's Arson Explosives Detail, with a collective 74 years of service. Between them, the three men leave behind 16 children.
Family members gathered Friday morning as the bodies of the detectives were escorted from the coroner's office to a mortuary in Covina.
Luna promised a full investigation and major policy changes.
"We're going to turn this upside down," he said. "We're going to look at everything we can. Why? Because we need to know what happened. We owe it to the families. And for God's sake, I never want this to happen again."
City News Service contributed to this report.
