After the LAPD bomb squad botched the detonation of seized fireworks and leveled part of a city block in 2021, destroying dozens of homes and costing the city millions in lawsuit payouts, police officials would not disclose how the officers responsible for the disaster were held accountable.
The punishments remained a closely held secret until recent weeks, when the internal affairs investigative files for the incident surfaced online — along with hundreds of thousands of confidential police records obtained by hackers who targeted the L.A. city attorney’s office.
A Times investigation published two years after the June 30, 2021, incident in South L.A. identified the six bomb squad officers on the scene that day. Since then, neighborhood residents and community activists have repeatedly called for them to be fired.
But the leaked files show they all escaped serious discipline.
The harshest punishment was a suspension of 18 days without pay for Det. Damien Levesque, the highest-ranking member of the unit who was present, the LAPD records show. Others received even less time off before returning to work.
Two bomb squad technicians, Stefanie Alcocer and Mell Hogg, were each suspended for 10 days after the investigation found they grossly misjudged the weight of the fireworks they placed into a containment vessel before detonating them, according to the LAPD records reviewed by The Times. All three were later transferred off the bomb squad. They did not respond to requests for comment Friday, nor did an LAPD spokesperson. The department did not respond to questions about whether the officers named in the files received additional discipline beyond the suspensions outlined in the records.
An LAPD source familiar with the case authenticated the leaked files and said they appeared to contain details about disciplinary decisions that the department has said it cannot release under state law. The files also contain unredacted versions of official reports previously reviewed by The Times.
The explosion in the 700 block of East 27th Street injured 17 people — 10 LAPD officers, six civilians and one agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — and damaged or destroyed 22 residential properties, 13 businesses and 37 vehicles, authorities said.
The LAPD has long maintained that the reason the department cannot disclose officer personnel records or information relating to the explosion is the strict privacy protections given to police. An attorney for The Times and others have argued for the files to be made public under a landmark state transparency law that requires the release of police records in instances in which officers severely injure people — as was the case in the blast — or when there are sustained findings of unreasonable or excessive force.
The investigation summarized in the files found that the bomb squad badly misjudged how large the blast would be from a controlled detonation of illegal fireworks. The documents show that the LAPD found Levesque was “deficient in his supervisory duties” by failing to check the accuracy of the calculations made by his technicians. The report also faulted him for walking away from critical safety discussions, which “contributed to an excessive quantity of explosive material being detonated.”
Some residents who were displaced by the blast on East 27th Street were outraged when The Times told them about the officers’ punishments in the leaked files.
“Eighteen freaking days?!” said Maria Velasquez, reacting to Levesque’s suspension.
Her family’s home was lost in the explosion, which she said traumatized her elderly parents. She said they lived out of a hotel for three years and, although they received a settlement from the city, a chunk of the money has gone toward paying rent on an apartment because permits to rebuild their home still have not been approved.
The Times’ past reporting showed several of the officers involved in the incident were later promoted, which some said only added insult to injury.
“Whatever money they lost out on these [suspensions], they more than made up for with their raises,” said Ron Gochez, a member of the advocacy group Unión del Barrio.
According to the leaked file reviewed by The Times, the LAPD’s internal investigators found Hogg made a “gross underestimation” of the explosive weight of the fireworks that police intended to detonate.
Hogg said in an interview with federal investigators that he visually estimated that the devices contained 10 pounds of explosive powder — calculations on which Alcocer based her subsequent decisions, according to the leaked files. Federal investigators concluded the actual weight of the fireworks was closer to 42 pounds, nearly double the containment vessel’s maximum safe capacity for a single explosion.
The leaked Internal Affairs report said there was a mistaken “universal belief” within the bomb squad that the containment vessel could safely detonate up to 40 pounds of explosive materials.
The department’s monthly discipline roundup shows the 10-day suspensions given to Hogg and Alcocer are in line with punishments for more routine incidents, such as one officer found to have improperly pushed a civilian. Another cop, whose name was not released by the department, was suspended for 10 days after both failing to disclose a relationship with a subordinate and using a department database for nonwork purposes.
In the fireworks incident, the leaked records show that the department handed a five-day suspension to Brendan McCarty, a technician whose warning to his colleagues that the plan wasn’t safe went unheeded. Several officials at the scene recalled overhearing McCarty register his objections, according to the Internal Affairs document.
Department officials concluded that McCarty, the most senior technician on the scene, should have been more persistent when it became clear that his advice was not being followed, according to the leaked investigative file.
Two other bomb squad officers, Thomas Deluccia and Mark Richardson, were cleared of any misconduct after the department determined neither played a significant role that day, according to the Internal Affairs file.
The owner of the fireworks, Arturo Ceja III, a 26-year-old living in his family’s home on the block, pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of unlicensed transportation of explosives from Nevada to California.
Times staff writer Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.
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