The widow of an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy killed in a grenade blast last year sued the department this week, alleging a lack of proper training and ignored safety protocols led to the incident, which also caused the deaths of two other deputies.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in L.A. County Superior County by Nancy Lemus, alleges her husband, Victor Lemus, died in a training exercise gone wrong and seeks damages for emotional distress and loss of income.
The blast last summer was the deadliest incident for the Sheriff’s Department in 150 years, triggering criminal investigations and more than $350,000 in fines from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
In addition to Victor Lemus, 40, deputies Joshua Kelley-Eklund and William Osborn died in the July 2025 explosion.
Asked to respond to the lawsuit, a Sheriff’s Department spokesperson did not directly address the allegations, but said investigations into the incident remain open and that the department “is implementing several measures to further strengthen operational safety,” including standardizing policies and introducing new equipment.
In her lawsuit, Nancy Lemus alleged that on the day prior to the blast, Kelley-Eklund, 41, and Osborn, 58, responded to a call from the Santa Monica Police Department after officers found explosive devices in the garage of an apartment complex.
The deputies responded to the scene in personal work trucks rather than the department’s bomb truck and Osborn improperly examined the grenade and falsely reported it inert, according to the complaint.
Either Osborn or Kelley-Eklund then took the ordnance home and left it in their truck overnight, or brought it into their house, the lawsuit alleges.
The next day, one of the deputies took the grenade to the department’s Biscailuz Regional Training Center, where live explosive devices are prohibited, the lawsuit said. The deputies then used it in a training exercise with Victor Lemus, who lacked formal bomb squad training and “was reliant on the expertise of [Kelley-Eklund] and Osborn,” according to the lawsuit.
Nancy Lemus, who is also a sheriff’s deputy, alleged in the lawsuit that either Kelley-Eklund or Osborn pulled the pin of the grenade, killing all three.
“The explosion made Plaintiff Nancy Lemus a widow and her children, Victoria and Emily, fatherless,” the complaint says.
Nancy Lemus’ lawsuit also contains allegations that echo a previous scandal in which sheriff’s personnel were accused of passing around graphic images from the aftermath of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant six years ago. A lawsuit filed by Bryant’s family resulted in a multimillion dollar verdict against the department.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2025 blast, Nancy Lemus alleged in her lawsuit that Sheriff Cmdr. Thomas Giandomenico took unauthorized and unofficial photos of her husband’s body. The photos “violated the respect owed to the dead and the privacy of the bereaved by collecting trophies in the form of death images,” Lemus claimed in the lawsuit, alleging that the pictures could eventually circulate online.
The Times reported in March that the department was conducting an internal investigation into whether graphic crime scene photos of the July 2025 blast were improperly shared.
The Times previously reported that Giandomenico had been relieved from duty during the investigation. He could not be reached for comment Saturday.
The lawsuit alleges that Sheriff Robert Luna failed to confiscate Giandomenico’s phone after learning of the photos and tried to conceal from Nancy Lemus that the images existed.
“The failure to adequately train, supervise, and discipline personnel regarding the taking of such photographs is a complete dereliction of duty, and can be directly attributed to Sheriff Luna and other members of his command staff,” the complaint said.
Times Staff Writers Richard Winton and Salvador Hernandez contributed to this report.
The post Widow of L.A. County sheriff’s deputy killed in grenade blast files wrongful death lawsuit appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
