No shit: The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has concluded that the Los Angeles Police Department is responsible for that huge fireworks explosion because it exploded too many fireworks at once.
On June 30, members of the LAPD bomb squad were disposing of 2,268 kg of seized fireworks in South Los Angeles. Something went very wrong when they attempted to dispatch a number of “coke can-sized” devices with powder and fuses on them, with the resulting blast levelling a portion of the neighbourhood.
The borked disposal attempt resulted in at least 17 injuries, damage to dozens of homes and vehicles, and the displacement of around 75 residents thanks to property destruction. At least two others have since died, one an elderly man who died after relocating to a motel and the other a man whose ceiling collapsed on him while he was sleeping. Locals suspect those deaths are connected.
Police initially insisted that the incident was a “routine detonation,” that they had no idea what went wrong, and only 5 kg of explosives were detonated. It was actually almost 18 kg, far over the maximum amount that could have been disposed of safely. According to the Los Angeles Times, ATF Assistant Special Agent in Charge Michael Hoffman told residents during a closed-door meeting on Monday night that the explosion was due to the LAPD loading the device designed to make a certain amount of things go boom with way too many things that go boom.
The disaster “was caused by overloading the [total containment vessel] with more explosives than the TCV was designed for,” Hoffman said during the meeting, which was restricted to attendance by local residents only. “That’s what caused the failure.”
The ATF is “absolutely certain” of this conclusion, he added.
There are PIOs at scene and this is an ongoing situation in which the area will be impacted for hours due to evacuations, rendering the location safe, and investigation. Updates will be provided as they become available. pic.twitter.com/hatkqQj3ZP
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) July 1, 2021
The Times wrote that Hoffman told attendees the ATF had ruled out other possible causes, such as degradation of the containment vessel, a malfunction of its door mechanism. He added that the TCV was designed for repeated detonations of around 9 kg of TNT equivalent, or up to 33 pounds of explosives at a single time (after which they would have to be returned to the manufacturer for analysis). The LAPD’s bomb technicians blew up 18 kg of explosives at one time. The names of the officers involved have not been released.
According to the Times, LAPD Chief Michel Moore added during the meeting that bomb squad technicians had eyeballed the explosives rather than actually bothering to weigh them with a scale. Several individuals involved are no longer on the bomb squad and will not be making a return. (Of course, there’s no reason to believe those cops can’t take their lack of expertise to another town.) Moore added that all other protocols were correctly followed, other than the one that resulted in the LAPD bombing the neighbourhood. He specifically cited officers going door to door to give evacuation notices, which locals contest, saying they were given an inadequate warning or mixed messages before the detonation.
The LAPD will now be making changes including no longer using a TCV to detonate explosives in residential areas, requiring that any explosives detonated be weighed, and “checks and balances” to ensure that step is taken, Moore added, the Times wrote.
“As trained professionals in one of the largest police departments in America, I still cannot fathom how the LAPD thought it was acceptable to merely eyeball unstable explosives in the middle of a densely populated neighbourhood,” City Councilman Curren Price told the paper in a statement on Monday evening.
Attorneys representing locals have filed multiple legal claims for bodily injury and property destruction against the city of Los Angeles and the LAPD, citing the clear recklessness involved. A South Los Angeles man, 26-year-old Arturo Ceja III, has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of illegally transporting the fireworks that went up in the blast.