Bomb truck lid located blocks from blast site

A 500-pound lid from the police truck that erupted in South Los Angeles this week was found Friday in a backyard about four blocks away from where the vehicle failed to absorb the detonation of explosives.

The lid was discovered on Friday afternoon as federal investigators combed the debris field, said Michael Hoffman, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

In all, 45 ATF agents were assigned to the case to investigate the cause of the explosion that injured 17 people and damaged several cars and buildings in the area, ATF spokeswoman Ginger

Colbrun said.

All but one of the injured were hospitalized, with most if not all of them released.

Thirty agents from ATF’s Los Angeles office were working the case as well as 15 members of the agency’s National Response Team, which specializes in explosives and traveled from Huntsville, Alabama, Colbrun said.

Among the agents was a forensic chemist, a mapping specialist, a certified explosive specialist and other experts in the field of explosives, she said. The agents were split into two groups: one to follow leads and conduct interviews, and the other to process physical evidence.

“Right now we’re trying to shrink the perimeter in terms of collecting all the evidence in the surrounding area so we can open up the streets and get the

community back to some normalcy,” Colbrun said.

No updates to the explosion’s cause were available Friday, and a timetable of how long the investigation could take was unclear.

The mangled Los Angeles Police Department’s explosives truck, which held the iron chamber, remained on site Friday.

Residents within that area were asked to find officials at 28th and San Pedro streets, where Los Angeles officers would escort them to their homes to retrieve items.

LAPD had been tipped to an apparent cache of illegal fireworks from out of state and meant for sale here. Police went to a house in the 700 block of East 27th. About 8 a.m. Wednesday, they found stacked boxes 8- to 10-feet high on a back patio, about 5,000 pounds in all, officials have said.

The “safe and sane” fireworks were removed and taken to a secure location, but police also found 40

soda-can-sized improvised explosive devices with wicks and 200 smaller devices, officials said.

Police said they decided it was safer to detonate those devices on-site and put less than 10 pounds in the chamber, which was supposed to be able to hold up to 15 pounds of charge, LAPD Chief Michel Moore has said.

The chief also said police went door-to-door in an attempt to evacuate nearby residences before the planned detonation. Some of those residents did not answer and were discovered injured after the blast, police said.

The injured included nine LAPD officers, an ATF agent and seven civilians, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. Three civilians suffered moderate injuries, while the rest were deemed minor, according to LAFD.

A 26-year-old man was arrested in the case.