‘Total catastrophic failure’: LAPD faces questions over fireworks explosion that hurt 17

Aerial view of the remains of a destroyed armored truck, damaged vehicles and other debris scattered by explosion

, Ruben Vives, Leila Miller and Richard Winton

July 1, 2021 10:18 AM PT

The Los Angeles Police Department is promising a full investigation amid growing questions about the agency’s handling of a fireworks seizure in South Los Angeles that ended with a huge explosion that injured 17 people.

The blast occurred Wednesday inside a special LAPD semi-truck that had been used to contain and safely detonate fireworks and other explosives.

The truck was parked in front of a house in a residential neighborhood where the fireworks were found. Both law enforcement officials and residents were in the area at the time. Cars and some homes were damaged by the blast.

Here is what we know:

What brought police to 27th Street?

On Wednesday morning, the LAPD received a call about fireworks being stored at a home in the 700 block of East 27th Street, Chief Michel Moore said.

On the patio of the residence, officers found several thousand pounds of commercial fireworks stacked eight to 10 feet high in boxes. Bomb squad personnel spent the day moving them to be stored at another location

Officers also found what Moore called “improvised explosive devices” with simple fuses — about 40 the size of soft drink cans and 200 smaller objects of similar construction — and conducted X-rays to determine their contents.

Armored LAPD vehicle blown apart by the explosion

How the blast occurred

An LAPD bomb squad transferred a portion of the improvised devices into the iron chamber of the truck, which with its outer containment shell, was built to withstand an explosive force greater than from the amount that was placed inside, Moore said.

Police detonated some of the devices at 7:37 p.m., believing that the vehicle would be able to contain the explosion, but there was a “total catastrophic failure of that containment vehicle,” Moore said.

“Clearly protocols were followed and pursued, but something happened in that containment vehicle that should have not happened and we don’t know why,” the chief said. “We intend to find out why.”

An ambulance parked in a street with lights flashing at night

What precautions were taken?

Authorities established a 300-foot perimeter behind the vehicle and evacuated the north and south sides of 27th Street. Some witnesses said they saw people being directed away from the truck minutes before the blast.

But it’s unclear how extensive the evacuation was. Six civilians were taken to a hospital, three with serious injuries and three with minor injuries. One civilian was assessed for injuries but not transported. It’s unclear where they were when the explosion occurred.

Moore acknowledged that, after the explosion, residents had come out of residences where officers thought no one was home, after no one answered during a door-knocking effort to clear the street.

The injured identified by officials ranged in age from 42 to 85. Authorities said that nine LAPD officers and an officer from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were treated for minor injuries and are in fair condition.

Paul Sanchez, a KTLA-TV photojournalist, told The Times he was filming the containment unit from about 50 feet away when it exploded.

“It didn’t knock me to the ground, but it was almost like someone had thrown a football-style block,” he said.

Where did the fireworks come from?

Officers arrested Arturo Cejas III, a man in his 20s who resided at the home where the fireworks were found, on suspicion of reckless or malicious possession of a destructive device. He is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Moore said that the explosive material was acquired from out of state to be sold to community members for the Fourth of July. He said officials found Cejas’ 10-year-old brother at the scene and will be pursuing child endangerment charges against Cejas as well.

The LAPD will work with the ATF to investigate the origin of the fireworks and improvised devices, as well as to review the actions taken by officers to see “what we can do to avoid this type of circumstance from ever happening again,” Moore said.

What are the ongoing questions?

Investigators want to determine why the explosion occurred — including whether there was human error gauging the potential power of the explosives or failing to follow protocols to ensure containment or mechanical error with the truck.

There are also questions about why the explosives were not moved to a more remote location before being detonated, and whether more people should have been evacuated from the area before the detonation.

Moore promised a comprehensive review of the incident that would take into account the age of the containment vehicle and its history, as well as the power of the improvised explosives.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti wrote on Twitter that he was monitoring the situation closely and had directed the LAPD to conduct a full investigation “so we can better understand why this happened.”

The ATF said its national response team “is arriving today to assist in processing the scene” of the explosion.

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Kevin Rector

Kevin Rector is a legal affairs reporter for the Los Angeles Times covering the California Supreme Court, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and other legal trends and issues, and chipping in on coverage of the 2024 election. He started with The Times in 2020 and previously covered the Los Angeles Police Department for the paper. Before that, Rector worked at the Baltimore Sun for eight years, where he was a police and investigative reporter and part of a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in local reporting. More recently, he was part of a Times team awarded the 2023 Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress for coverage of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. He is from Maryland.

Ruben Vives

Ruben Vives is a general assignment reporter for the Los Angeles Times. A native of Guatemala, he got his start in journalism by writing for The Times’ Homicide Report in 2007. He helped uncover the financial corruption in the city of Bell that led to criminal charges against eight city officials. The 2010 investigative series won the Pulitzer Prize for public service and other prestigious awards.

Leila Miller

Leila Miller is a former foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times based in Mexico City. She joined the newsroom in 2018, where she spent several years covering criminal justice, including the Luz del Mundo sex abuse case, and was part of the team that was a 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist for its coverage of the Conception boat fire off the Channel Islands. She moved to Mexico in 2021 and was a 2023 Livingston finalist for an investigation on how a centuries-old forensic test has been sending mothers in Latin America to prison for killing their newborns. Born in Argentina but raised in Los Angeles, Miller is a graduate of Oberlin College and Columbia University’s School of Journalism.

Richard Winton

Richard Winton is an investigative crime writer for the Los Angeles Times and part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2011. Known as @lacrimes on Twitter, during almost 30 years at The Times he also has been part of the breaking news staff that won Pulitzers in 1998, 2004 and 2016.