Global Courant 2023-04-19 20:59:57
Nearly two years after the Los Angeles Police Department’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit blew up a South LA neighborhood during the detonation of a cache of fireworks, officials say the first officer involved has been disciplined.
The unnamed officer was suspended without pay for 10 days for “deficient in his duties which contributed to the loading and detonation of an excessive amount of explosive material into the Total Containment Vessel,” police said. Departmental data was put online on Tuesday. The officer was identified only by rank and assignment: police officer III of “technical service maintenance”. No other details were provided.
The disciplinary action is the first to come to light against an officer in the widely criticized June 2021 incident, as the city continues to work with the dozens of residents and business owners affected by the blast.
In an interview Tuesday, LAPD Chief Michel Moore said he could not discuss the specific officer’s case, citing employee privacy laws. But, he said, a lengthy investigation has found “sufficient evidence that misconduct occurred” during the botched explosion. This led him to recommend discipline against a “number of officers involved in the handling and process and decision-making,” Moore said.
He said he didn’t immediately know how many officers were eventually punished in connection with the explosion.
An LAPD spokeswoman later clarified that a total of six department employees were charged with misconduct in connection with the incident. Capt. Kelly Muniz said two officers were disciplined for their roles and “corrective actions” — department slang for additional training — were assigned to two others.
Details of the other disciplinary case were not made public on Tuesday.
Under the LAPD’s current disciplinary system, officers who are suspended or even fired for misconduct can have their cases heard before a closed-door tribunal known as a Board of Rights. Disciplinary decisions are generally not announced until they have been finalized.
On June 30, 2021, the police bomb squad botched the detonation of a large fireworks cache discovered in the backyard of a home on 27th Street in South Los Angeles. The resulting blast swept through the densely populated neighborhood, injuring 17 people and destroying dozens of homes, cars and businesses. More than 80 residents were displaced.
Two elderly residents who lived in the block and were among the displaced later died. Relatives and activists have blamed their deaths on the considerable stress of the explosion. Officials said the two died of disease and natural causes.
An investigation into the incident by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms concluded that police seriously misjudged the amount of firecrackers they placed in a containment barrel before detonating.
Arturo Ceja III, a 26-year-old resident of the block, pleaded guilty in federal court last year to carrying unlicensed explosives from Nevada to California. Ceja told federal investigators he bought the fireworks from a dealer called Area 51 in Pahrump, Nev. Blake MacLearnsberry.
After being tipped off that someone was selling fireworks from a home on that block, members of the bomb squad and LAPD Major Crimes Unit detectives responded to the crime scene, the affidavit said. A search of the home turned up more than 500 boxes containing about 5,000 pounds of commercial fireworks, stored haphazardly in cardboard boxes under a tent, MacLearnsberry wrote in the affidavit.
MacLearnsberry wrote that officers were disposing of the explosives when an Explosive Ordnance Disposal supervisor decided that some homemade firecrackers also found in the house “were not safe to transport due to the risk of detonation in a densely populated area and would therefore be disposed of on site.” destroyed using a total containment vessel. .”
But a later investigation found that LAPD explosives technicians accidentally loaded and detonated 39.8 pounds of explosives into the containment vehicle — more than the ship could safely contain. This was done on the objection of one of the officers present, according to a report.
LAPD officials previously told The Times that the officers who caused the blast were held responsible. But Tuesday’s revelation was the first public acknowledgment of specific discipline in the case. The agents involved have still not been named; officials of the department say they are bound by privacy legislation.
Since the incident, 89 people whose lives were turned upside down by the blast have moved to the Level Hotel downtown, which was paid for with taxpayers’ money.
Earlier this year, Councilman Curren Price sparked public outcry after telling a Times reporter that the dozens of displaced residents who still call the hotel home were “playing the system a bit”. Price later apologized for what he said were “insensitive” comments.
He has since filed a motion authorizing $2.37 million in funding to continue supporting the families living at the hotel as they still don’t have a home. He said his office was looking at additional funding to allow them to stay there “for an extended period of time” following a city deadline that expired last month.
Times staff writer Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.
