Three years after Los Angeles police set off an explosion in a South L.A. neighborhood while detonating a cache of fireworks, the city will pay more than $21 million to settle claims from several residents who were displaced and still live in hotels.
Community members put up banners ahead of the news conference.
(Jason Armand/Los Angeles Times)
The City Council unanimously approved settlements involving more than a dozen residents on Tuesday, just days after the June 30, 2021, anniversary of the explosion. The settlements will now go to Mayor Karen Bass for approval.
The city agreed to pay one resident, Lucia Gonzales, $175,000. Rosalina Reyes will receive $1.07 million, which the family’s attorney said is only for property damage and does not include personal injury.
But the largest settlement, to resolve property and personal injury claims from more than a dozen residents of the working-class neighborhood, is $20 million. Award amounts for the 17 claimants range from $100,000 to $2.8 million.
Los Angeles City Council member Curren Price at a council meeting held at City Hall on July 2, 2024.
(Myang J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
City Councilman Curren Price, in whose district the explosion occurred, said in a statement Tuesday that the process over the past three years “has been far too slow, and on behalf of the City of Los Angeles, I am sorry it has taken so long to get to this point.”
“The victims of the fireworks explosion on 27th Street have suffered unimaginable pain and trauma that will last a lifetime,” Price said. “Reaching these financial settlements was an important step toward their healing, rebuilding their lives and finding stability and peace.”
Price proposed amending the $20 million settlement proposal to extend affected residents’ stays at the Levels Hotel until February. He also proposed expanding services at the All People’s Community Center, which has been providing support and resources to residents since the explosion.
City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s office calculated that the explosion had caused about $10.5 million in damages to the city as of February.
Mejia spokeswoman Diana Chang said in an email that relocation of displaced residents cost $5.3 million, plus $2.3 million for liability claims, $1.55 million for cleanup and repairs, $1.3 million for the LAPD’s control vehicle — which will replace the one destroyed in the explosion — and a little more than $44,000 for city labor, not including the cost of police officers.
“The truth is this incident should never have happened, it was completely preventable, and all these years later we still haven’t gotten over it,” Price said.
Some homes on East 27th Street have had their windows and doors covered with plywood after the LAPD blasted fireworks.
(Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)
Jose Becerra inside his home in Los Angeles on October 27, 2021. The house was badly damaged by the explosion. He lived there with his 10 family members.
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
There are about 42 residents still living in the level 13 rooms. According to city officials, the settlement will cover many of those residents. But there are still several claims pending, including an additional claim from the Reyes family.
The city attorney’s office did not provide details on how many claims remain.
According to Price’s office, once the settlement checks are issued, families staying at the hotel will have 90 days to find alternative housing.
According to Price’s office, the agreement “includes provisions to allow individuals sufficient time to exit the hotel.”
Kenia Quintanilla, who is part of the larger settlement, said her family is planning to buy a house. But they are waiting to get the money to start looking.
“We don’t know where we’re going … but it doesn’t matter. Because I don’t want to stay in a hotel. I’m fed up with it,” Quintanilla said.
On June 30, 2021, the LAPD bomb squad detonated a stash of fireworks found in the backyard of a home on 27th Street. The explosion injured 17 people and caused extensive damage to homes. More than 80 residents were displaced.
The illegal fireworks were found at the home of Arturo Ceja III, who pleaded guilty in federal court to unlicensed transportation of explosives from Nevada to California. He was sentenced to five months in prison and two years of supervised release. Ceja was not fined and will not pay any restitution, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
In-spite of this a repeated demand From the residents who lost their homes in the blast to the names and formal discipline of the officers involved, the case has been largely kept secret, due in part to the LAPD’s secretive disciplinary system and refusal to discuss personnel matters. Last year, The Times reported Identified Bomb disposal squad personnel were involved in this.
Among them were Detective Damien Levesque, a supervisor on the scene who repeatedly recused himself from critical discussions about the safety of the operation; Mel Hogue, the lead technician who did not weigh the powder in the fireworks the team was to detonate and instead greatly underestimated its explosive power; Mark Richardson, who helped Hogue take X-rays of samples of the explosives; Brendan McCarthy, who warned his fellow technicians and Lévesque that the plan was not safe; Thomas Delucia, who helped load the commercial fireworks found in the house; and Stephanie Alcocer, who was primarily responsible for manufacturing the countercharge, the explosive used to detonate the fireworks inside the department’s “total containment vessel” that failed to explode.
According to a report by the Los Angeles Police Department’s inspector general, bomb technicians on the scene believed the ship had a maximum capacity of 40 pounds of explosives. But in fact the ship was only rated to handle 33 pounds of explosives.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives later found that the bomb squad had packed 39.8 pounds of explosives on board the ship, including counter charges.
“It is my firm hope that the LAPD has learned from this disaster and taken every step necessary to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future in the best interest of our city,” Price said in a statement.
Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
