The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has confirmed that an explosion at one of its training facilities in southern California killed three of its members.
The explosion took place shortly after 7:30am local time (14:30 GMT) on Friday at the Biscailuz Training Facility in East Los Angeles.
“Tragically, there were three Department member fatalities. Sheriff’s homicide detectives are on scene,” the department said on social media.
The department described the explosion as a “critical workplace incident”. The blast closed roads in the surrounding area, though the sheriff’s department reassured locals that there was no threat to the wider community.
Sheriff Robert Luna held a midday news conference not far from the blast site, where he declined to identify the three victims. He did, however, say that one had served 19 years with the force, another 22 years, and a third 33 years.
“This is unfortunately the largest loss of life for us as the LA County Sheriff’s Department since 1857. Between all three sworn members, they had served our community proudly for 74 years,” Luna said.
The sheriff also said the three victims were part of a special enforcement bureau tasked with arson and explosives enforcement.
On social media earlier in the day, United States Attorney General Pam Bondi indicated that members of the local bureau of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were on the ground to probe what happened.
“I just spoke to [US Attorney Bill Essayli] about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles,” Bondi wrote on social media. “Please pray for the families of the sheriff’s deputies killed.”
At his midday news conference, Sheriff Luna said that details about the explosion were forthcoming as the investigation was only in its initial stages.
“At this time, we do not know the cause of the explosion,” Luna said. “There is no threat to this community. This is an isolated incident.”
Luna added that he is prioritising notifying the relatives of the victims before releasing further information to the public.
He has met two of the three families so far, he said. “As you can imagine, those were extremely challenging conversations.”
The sheriff also thanked the bomb squad of the Los Angeles Police Department for helping to secure the blast site.
“They immediately came out to assist after this explosion occurred to render the devices safe,” he said. “And just so all of you know, they were just rendered safe within the last minutes, right before we walked out here, so it was still an active scene. It wasn’t stable and definitely a very active crime scene.”
He explained that investigators can only go on site now that there is no further risk of explosions.
“There’s a lot more that we don’t know than what we do know,” he added.
Luna, however, was quick to defend the professionalism of the special enforcement bureau, calling its members “the best of the best”.
“The individuals who work our arsons explosives detail, they have years of training,” Luna said. “Usually, the average calls that they go to in dealing with some very dangerous situations or items average about 11,000 per year. So these aren’t people who don’t do this very often. They are fantastic experts. And unfortunately, I lost three of them today.”
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