More than two years after the Los Angeles Police Department’s reckless South Los Angeles fireworks detonation, the department continues to pile one error on another, revealing an ignorance of the laws it is supposed to enforce and ever-increasing estrangement from the public it is supposed to serve.
The disastrous June 30, 2021, incident occurred when members of the LAPD bomb squad overloaded a containment vessel with confiscated illegal fireworks and then detonated it in a residential and business district area on East 27th Street near San Pedro Street — despite warnings from an experienced member of the team that the explosives might be too powerful for the unit.
The warnings proved correct. The explosion injured 17 people. It damaged or destroyed dozens of homes and businesses and displaced more than 80 residents.
