State regulators have accused the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department of skipping inspections, neglecting maintenance and committing a series of “intentional” safety violations that led to a fire at a mobile shooting range in 2023 that killed a deputy. , according to records obtained by The Times.
Last month, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health fined the department just over $300,000 for a series of safety violations at a mobile trailer parked outside the Castaic jail complex. Inspectors said a buildup of combustible dust, such as pooled gunpowder, caused the deadly fire.
“The employer failed to perform daily, weekly, monthly and semi-annual preventive maintenance on the indoor rolling trailer,” the agency wrote in a 19-page citation issued in April. “As a result, on or about October 10, 2023, two employees suffered serious physical injuries to their bodies when the inside trailer exploded and caught fire.”
Los Angeles County Deputy Alfredo “Freddy” Flores was fatally injured in a fire that broke out at a mobile shooting range in Castaic on October 10.
(Joe A. Núñez)
The two burned officers were hospitalized and last month one of them, Alfredo “Freddy” Flores, 51, died. He was buried on May 9 during a funeral in Sylmar.
“Now we know that Freddy lost his life because Mobile trailers like the one he was in had a known history of catching fire due to poor design and maintenance,” said attorney John Carpenter, who represents the Flores family.
The Asociation. Los Angeles sheriff's deputies blamed county leaders on the Board of Supervisors for failing to “adequately fund and equip” the Sheriff's Department, which It has a budget of 4 billion dollars.
“The fire that caused Freddy's tragic death was foreseeable and avoidable,” union president Richard Pippin wrote in an email.
Meanwhile, the Sheriff's Department said the fire is still under investigation and declined to answer several specific questions about the incident, including whether problems identified by the state have been fixed.
“We are working with the county attorney to evaluate the violations,” the department wrote in an email, “but the safety of our staff is paramount and our primary concern.”
The agency did not say whether it appealed the citations, although state OSHA officials confirmed it did. They said the fines have not been paid because the appeal is pending.
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A mobile shooting range trailer caught fire in 2019 when officers were testing a non-explosive flashbang trainer.
(Steve Propster)
Since the late 1980s, the Sheriff's Department has relied on mobile shooting ranges to ensure that its approximately 10,000 Officers can test their firearms skills four times a year. The department can move the range from one station to another each week instead of paying officers overtime to spend a day driving to a fixed location.
The 50- to 53-foot mobile structures feature multiple firing lines supervised by a range master. The interior walls are covered with sound-deadening foam, and behind the target is a thick rubber or metal plate known as a bullet trap. As with other indoor shooting ranges, shooting trailers require regular cleaning to prevent a dangerous buildup of lead and gunpowder.
“When you fire a gun, there is gunpowder and explosives inside the cartridge,” a former aide-de-camp told the Times in October. “Not all that gunpowder burns; sometimes it ends up on the ground in front of you, sometimes it ends up in your hands.”
Several shooting range experts told The Times last year that, although fires at mobile shooting ranges appear to be rare, the buildup of unburned gunpowder on any shooting range that is not properly cleaned and ventilated can cause fires. Now, state regulators say, that's it.
One of the violations described in Cal/OSHA records, provided to The Times by the Flores family's attorney, faulted the department for persistently failing to maintain records of inspections dating back to at least 2021, when the state hit the department with another citation for the same problem. It's unclear how much the 2021 violation cost the county in fees, but recent record-keeping failures resulted in a $1,000 fine.
In its April notice, the state fined the department $25,000 for failing to implement procedures to identify workplace hazards “including the danger of allowing propellant to accumulate on the surfaces of indoor mobile firing ranges” and for failing to perform periodic inspections.
“The employer failed to participate in regularly scheduled inspections to identify unsafe working conditions at indoor mobile shooting ranges,” the citation notice said. “The employer failed to identify hazards related to the indoor mobile shooting ranges after he discovered a new hazard when the mobile shooting ranges caught fire.”
Fire crews try to put out a fire inside a trailer at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.
(KTLA-TV Channel 5)
The department racked up another $25,000 fine for failing to fix safety issues in a timely manner. Specifically, the state accused the agency of knowing the danger of “accumulated propellant” inside shooting trailers and failing to “take sufficient measures to prevent the recurrence of fires at its indoor mobile shooting ranges.”
One of the costliest violations, which the state deemed “willful” and “serious,” blamed the department for allegedly failing to perform periodic inspections and preventative maintenance recommended by the trailer manufacturer.
That violation generated a fine of $125,000, as did another “willful” and “serious” violation for not cleaning the stove trailer frequently enough and allowing “accumulations of combustible dust on floors, shelves, beams, equipment, machines or in other places that caused an explosion and a fire.”
Last year, department officials told The Times that the stove trailer had been repaired and cleaned by an outside contractor in July and that the department's Facilities Services Office did its normal maintenance on the trailer in September. It's unclear how those statements square with the recent subpoenas or whether that could influence the pending appeal, and the department did not clarify.
In addition to the violations discovered last fall, the state's April notice also included two pages of memos warning the department that a trailer outside the Men's Central Jail had combustible acoustic foam inside and lacked adequate ventilation and collection mechanisms. of dust. Officials said the trailer is not in use.
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As The Times reported last year, The fire that killed Flores was at least the fourth trailer fire in the last decade. Although officials have released little information about some of the incidents, department records show at least one involved similar concerns about gunpowder buildup.
In 2019, officers designing active shooter training in Marina del Rey accidentally started a fire while testing a flashbang trainer, a non-explosive version of a flashbang or stun grenade.
LASD photos show the aftermath of a 2019 fire at a mobile shooting range.
(Steve Propster)
Steven Propster, one of the officers involved in that incident, told The Times in an interview last year that he wanted to test the noisy device in a controlled environment, and that the soundproof trailer seemed ideal.
The first time, Propster said, the device activated without a problem. The second time, a small flame appeared. One of the other officers stomped on him with his foot. When two flames appeared closer, Propster yelled for another officer to get a fire extinguisher.
“He put it out, but two seconds later, the flames went up the wall,” Propster said. “We ran to the door and the flame began to spin, burning everything and expelling us. “It was like a movie.”
According to internal affairs records Propster recently shared with The Times, the Department of Arson and Explosives determined the fire was “accidental.” Their report noted that the flashbang trainers were advertised as devices that “would not get hot enough to start fires” and that the fire started when sparks landed on “hanging combustible foam insulation” inside the trailer.
“This fire was likely accelerated by the presence of unburned gunpowder that is inevitably present in this environment,” the arson report said, and “it cannot be assumed that the act of launching the stun training device at the firing range mobile would present a substantial impact and unjustifiable risk of causing a fire.”
Ultimately, internal affairs records show, Propster was hit with a five-day suspension for unauthorized use of the flashbang trainer and for setting a fire that destroyed a $150,000 trailer and “resulted in media coverage” and “outcry.” from the community with concerns about possible damage to the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve.”
Propster told The Times that he came away from the incident concerned about the department's continued use of field trailers.
“If there is a fire, it is unique,” he said last year. “Two, okay, what's causing this?”
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More than six months after the 2023 fire, the department has still released few details about what happened. He The fire started around 9:30 a.m. on October 10. in the trailer, which was parked next to the men's jail at the Pitchess Detention Center.
Two deputies were inside the 53-foot trailer when the fire broke out, sheriff's officials said. Flores was taking a department-mandated recertification test and the other officer was supervising. Both were rushed to the hospital with third-degree burns. Flores, a 22-year veteran of the department, remained hospitalized until his death.
“Freddy Flores fought to live for six months,” said Carpenter, the family's attorney. “We still do not know all the details of what happened. “We just know it shouldn’t have happened.”
The department has not offered updates on the other officer or released details about how the fire started. But immediately after the fire, the department asked the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for help in investigating and closed all of its mobile shooting ranges.
This week, the ATF confirmed it provided assistance to the Sheriff's Department, but said it could not provide any details because the investigation continues.
