A legal claim filed by the widow of 1 of the 3 LA County Sheriff’s Department deputies killed in a grenade explosion last summer says the Department hadn’t provided adequate explosives training, and an unreliable x-ray machine had given an inaccurate indication that the grenade that detonated – was inert.
Nancy Lemus, the widow of deputy Victor Lemus, said in the claim for damages that the Department failed to train her husband in the safe handling of explosives, and that the other deputies killed, Joshua Kelley-Eklund and William Osborn, didn’t properly examine or handle the grenade.
A government claim is generally required before a lawsuit can be filed against a government entity in state court. It was filed in January but wasn’t known until this week. The claim was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
The Sheriff’s Department said in a statement it has been served with the claim, but declined to address the details citing the ongoing investigation into the explosion.
“We remain committed to thoroughly understanding the circumstances of this tragic incident and ensuring the safety of our personnel,” the Department emailed Wednesday.
“The Department continues to mourn the loss of our three Arson Explosive Detail Detectives and remains committed to supporting their colleagues and families.”
The explosion on the morning of July 18, 2025 happened as the 3 deputies were examining two grenades that had been discovered the night before, inside the storage unit of an apartment building on Bay St. in Santa Monica.
The claim says deputy William Osborn used, “an older x-ray machine to examine the explosive device,” then, “falsely reported to the Santa Monica officers that the device was inert,” before driving away with the grenades, rather than destroying them on site or handing them over to the military.
The false x-ray reading, the claim says, led the deputies to use what they believed was an inert grenade in a training demonstration, and alleged that one of the other 2 deputies pulled the pin.
“The device exploded, killing Victor Lemus, as well as themselves. The explosion made Claimant a widow.”
A second grenade collected at the Santa Monica apartment was never found at the blast site, or inside the deputies’ vehicles or homes.
Several law enforcement sources familiar with the case but not authorized to discuss it publicly, confirmed that the statements in the claim align with conclusions in a still-secret ATF investigative report on the explosion.
“This is still an active investigation,” the Sheriff’s Department wrote.
“Sheriff’s Homicide investigators are continuing their death investigation of our Arson Explosive Detail Detectives, and the ATF has the lead on the post-blast investigation to determine the origin and cause of the explosion and the whereabouts of the second device.”