Posted on 07/21/2025 11:22:08 AM PDT by BenLurkin
The explosives that detonated and killed three L.A. County Sheriff’s Department deputies may have been found in a storage unit at an apartment complex in Santa Monica, a law enforcement source tells KTLA. The source then reported that authorities initially thought the explosives, military-style grenades, were inert before they cut one open the next day as part of a training exercise.
The blast occurred last Friday morning at the Biscailuz Regional Training Center in East Los Angeles.
The three deputies, Detective Joshua Kelley-Eklund, Detective Victor Lemus and Detective William Osborn, were killed while moving “undetonated ordnance,” sources told KTLA on Friday. All three were assigned to the LASD Special Enforcement Bureau’s Arson Explosives Detail.
...
A source told KTLA that the explosives found in the apartment’s storage unit on Thursday may be what killed the deputies on Friday. It was later reported by the same source that the explosives, two military-style grenades, were X-rayed at the scene and deemed inert on Thursday.
The grenades, according to the source, had been stolen by a member of the U.S. military during their training. The three deputies loaded them into their unit and took them back to East Los Angeles.
Per the law enforcement source, on the following day, the deputies cut one of the grenades in half as a training exercise in order to examine what was inside of it thinking it would not explode; however, that is when the device detonated.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
Unscrew the cap/pin and check if it has a charge.
Pineapple grenades in the WWII Pacific theater seem to have been painted a baby poop yellow.
I demand to know why.
The Blueberry Girl
Having worked with ordnance for many years, you treat all ordnance as live like you treat a gun as always loaded.
Not very smart EOD. Could have unscrewed the detonator from the body of the grenade and looked inside, to make sure, before, getting out the cutting saw.
They are now part of the training manual, on, what not to do.
You take them to a cook-off area and safely detonate them.
At least that’s how they did it in the Chicago PD Bomb Squad.
Just like Lazs penis
I knew a guy in college who had an inert grenade. Showing it to me, he pulled the pin and yelled. I was out of the room and down the hall in about 2 seconds when I heard him laughing. Scared the bejeebers out of me.
Something doesn’t sound right. US military grenades are incredibly safe. You can unscrew the fuse and look inside the grenade. If it is “real,” you can tell immediately. If I remember right, the explosive is basically plastic explosive which requires heat and pressure, so you can burn it out (no pressure). However, remember that the heat created by burning plastic explosive burns well over 1000 degrees F. The fuse that is removed from an M67 frag grenade is a little stronger than a firecracker. In the Marine Corps, we used to screw grenade fuses into apples and throw them at each other. Yes, it was unsafe, because the fuse does throw a small mount of metal around, but we were Marines and so we never let a little risk interfere with our fun.
It was later reported by the same source that the explosives, two military-style grenades, were X-rayed at the scene and deemed inert on Thursday.
Right, I perform industrial digital radiography as part of my work duties. It depends on the system and its capabilities, but CT or standard 2D with enough power to penetrate into dense items will definitely work. Ovepenetration might have been the issue here - too much accelerating voltage, which may have caused the appearance of nothing being inside the grenade case. The policy should require that a competent DR tech be the one to perform and interpret the imagery.
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