Funeral services will be held in the coming weeks for three Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department detectives who were killed when an explosive device went off during an examination earlier this month.
Sheriff’s detectives Joshua Kelley-Eklund,Victor Lemus and William Osborn were killed on July 18 at the Biscailuz Regional Training Center when one of the two grenades seized from a Santa Monica apartment complex storage bin exploded.
The first deputy to be laid to rest is Osborn, 33-year veteran with the sheriff’s department, as the service is scheduled for Aug. 5 in Yorba Linda.
The funeral service for Kelly-Eklund, 20-year veteran who leaves behind his wife and their seven children, will take place on Aug. 7 in Santa Clarita.
Lemus, who comes from a long line of public servants in his family, will be laid to rest on Aug. 12 in Chino.
At the request of the families, all of the services will be private, with no accommodations for the public or media.
Sheriff Robert Luna said last week arson investigators from his department assisted Santa Monica police on July 17 to retrieve a pair of grenades that were found in an apartment building storage unit near Bay Street and Lincoln Boulevard. The devices were examined, X-rayed and believed to be inert, but sheriff’s officials retrieved the grenades and took them to the Biscailuz facility in the 1000 block of North Eastern Avenue “to be destroyed and rendered safe.”
It remains unclear what caused the single grenade to detonate, but Luna said the investigation determined that only one device exploded.
The whereabouts of the second grenade remain unknown. Luna said the department has begun an internal investigation into the handling of the situation.