The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for safety violations that contributed to an explosion that killed one deputy and seriously injured another.
It happened on October 10, 2023 at a mobile shooting range at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic. A total of four people were injured. Two officers were rushed to hospital critical but stable condition. The two others were slightly injured.
Six months after the explosion, one of the deputies… Alfredo “Freddy” Floresdied from the injuries he sustained that day.
At the time of the incident, a Los Angeles County Fire Department deputy chief said that “the entire internal contents” of the shooting range contributed to the explosion and subsequent fire. Sheriff Robert Luna said his investigators would figure out what sparked the inferno.
“We don’t want this to happen again, so we need to know why it happened and get to the bottom of it so we can prevent it from happening again,” said Sheriff Luna.
In a report from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, inspectors outlined five workplace citations related to the shooting range and recommended $301,000 in fines.
Cal/OSHA filed the first two charges alleging failure to maintain adequate records of inspections and lack of an effective procedure to identify workplace hazards, including the accumulation of flammable propellant within an indoor shooting range.
In the third citation, inspectors alleged that the sheriff’s department was aware of unsafe working conditions before the explosion but failed “to take sufficient steps to prevent recurrence of fires at the indoor mobile shooting ranges,” according to the Cal /OSHA report. .
The regulator claimed that the last two violations led directly to the explosion. In the report, inspectors stated that substitutes did not meet the manufacturer’s recommendations to “perform daily, weekly, monthly and semi-annual preventive maintenance” on the property. Additionally, the LA County Sheriff’s Department allowed the flammable material to accumulate throughout the facility, including on the floors, ledges, beams, equipment and machinery.
The report also described potential hazards at a similar facility at the Men’s Central Jail in Downtown LA, including flammable foam. The inspector also said the department misused a HEPA vacuum to collect potentially explosive dust and debris from the range.
“In the future, dust collectors will be located outdoors or in a free-standing area and will not be used within the range,” the inspector wrote. “In addition, any dust collection system must have adequate explosion vents. This also applies to the general dust collection system located under the trailer.”
According to Cal/OSHA, the LA County Sheriff’s Department has appealed the charges.
“We are working with County Counsel to evaluate the OSHA violations, but the safety of our workforce is of the utmost importance and our primary concern. The investigation into the shooting is currently ongoing,” the law enforcement agency wrote in a statement.
After the October 10 fire, the department closed all its mobile coverage.
“We are currently utilizing other law enforcement areas and our outdoor Wayside range for firearms qualifications,” the department said.
