The authorities are investigating whether an explosion that killed three Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on Friday was caused by devices seized from a condo in Santa Monica the day before.
Residents of the complex on Thursday afternoon were notified by their homeowners association that “an unidentified potential explosive device has been found in the garage” and that everyone needed to evacuate, according to an email that a resident shared with The New York Times.
“I don’t think we are in immediate danger,” but a bomb squad was on its way to assess, the message continued.
As residents evacuated, the three deputies, all bomb squad members with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, rushed to Santa Monica on Thursday, found what appeared to be explosive devices and brought them back to their headquarters, the same site as the training facility, on the other side of the county, officials said. The next morning, they were killed in the explosion.
The circumstances around the blast are still unknown, and it was unclear on Saturday if the explosives from Santa Monica were the ones that killed the deputies. But homicide detectives are probing that possibility. A state official briefed on the incident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation, said preliminary information had suggested that the explosion did not stem from a training exercise but from handling explosives that had been seized the previous night.
The official also said that once investigators with the F.B.I. and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who joined the sheriff’s department’s homicide investigators, complete their work, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would conduct its own probe on workplace safety issues.
Nicole Nishida, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department, said federal agents were conducting a forensic examination of the blast site on Saturday.
The explosion happened early Friday morning at a sprawling sheriff’s department facility in East Los Angeles that is home to training programs and elite units such as the Special Enforcement Bureau, which conducts counterterrorism and rescue operations throughout the county, and handles explosives.
Bomb squads handle potentially explosive materials almost daily in Los Angeles. Sheriff Robert Luna said the unit responds to roughly 1,100 calls per year, “dealing with some very dangerous situations or items.”
“So these aren’t people who don’t do this very often,” Sheriff Luna said. “They are fantastic experts.”
In Santa Monica, Michael Kellman, a 27-year-old resident of the condo complex, said that he was told by an officer on the scene that investigators had discovered what appeared to be grenades in a storage unit and that the focus was on a previous tenant.
Hours after the explosion, homicide investigators returned to the condo building on Friday evening to execute a search warrant. They removed some materials from the building but “nothing of significance” to the investigation, Ms. Nishida said. She added that investigators had not confirmed that the devices were grenades.
If the investigation links the explosive materials to a person who made or stored them, that person could be charged in connection with the deaths.
Alex Craig, who lives in the condo complex, described a tense scene Friday night as homicide detectives and federal agents swarmed his building, blocked off streets and evacuated residents once again. As they searched the building, Mr. Craig waited at a nearby coffee shop with his cat.
“It’s very unnerving, a little terrifying,” said Mr. Craig, 34, wondering about the possibility that potentially explosive materials had been in the garage under his condo for some time. “What would have happened if they would have gone off in the garage?” he asked. “I mean, they’re right under the building.”
The tragedy that killed the three deputies — Joshua Kelley-Eklund, Victor Lemus and William Osborn — drew an outpouring of support from elected officials across the county and state, as well as from law enforcement groups around the country.
Facing reporters late Friday morning on a street outside the facility, Sheriff Luna broke down at one point as he said the deaths represented the largest loss of life for the department in a single episode since 1857. Last year, Sheriff Luna joined a ceremony unveiling a plaque honoring those lost in 1857, when the sheriff at the time, James R. Barton, was killed alongside several of his men in a gunfight on horseback with a band of outlaws.
Detectives Kelley-Eklund, Lemus and Osborn had a combined 74 years of service in the department, and in the last few years, they had been assigned to the elite Special Enforcement Bureau’s arson and explosives arm.
Late Friday afternoon, hundreds of law enforcement officers in black-and-blue cruisers and on motorcycles solemnly escorted three vans containing the bodies of the fallen deputies from the training facility to the medical examiner’s office. As residents gathered on the street waving American flags, other officers lining the route saluted the passing vans, standing as one in the stillness of the moment.
Tim Arango is a correspondent covering national news. He is based in Los Angeles.
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