Detective Joshua Kelley-Eklund, one of three L.A. County Sheriff’s Department detectives who died when a grenade thought to be inert exploded at a sheriff’s facility in East Los Angeles, was laid to rest Thursday during a private funeral service.
Thursday’s service was held in Santa Clarita. At the request of the fallen deputies’ families, the services for Eklund were private, and those scheduled for Tuesday in Chino for Detective Victor Lemus will be private, with no accommodations for the public or media.
Kelley-Eklund joined the sheriff’s department in March 2006 as part of Academy Class 348. He was later assigned to the Pitchess Detention Center North and North County Correctional Facility.
He later transferred to the Lennox Sheriff’s Station in 2010 and became a field training officer at the South Los Angeles Sheriff’s Station, mentoring several new deputies as trainees. He was known as an outstanding field training officer who was professional and articulate.
Kelley-Eklund was promoted to the rank of detective at the Narcotics Bureau in 2016, when he was assigned to the LA Impact Team investigating complex crimes, seizing large quantities of narcotics and assisting in the arrests of murder suspects.
He became an arson and explosives investigator with the Special Enforcement Bureau in 2022.
Kelley-Eklund is survived by his wife, Jessica, and their seven children.
The blast, which occurred about 7:30 a.m. July 18 at the Biscailuz Regional Training Center, killed Kelley-Eklund, Victor Lemus and William Osborn.
The funeral for Osborn, a 33-year veteran of the department, took place Tuesday in Yorba Linda.
Although a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives-led investigation continues, it is believed it involved one of two grenades seized from a Santa Monica apartment complex storage bin a day before the deadly explosion.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna has said sheriff’s Arson Explosives Detail investigators assisted Santa Monica police on July 17 to retrieve a pair of grenades that were found in an apartment building storage unit near Bay Street and Lincoln Boulevard.
The devices were examined, X-rayed and believed to be inert, but sheriff’s officials retrieved the grenades and took them to the Biscailuz facility in the 1000 block of North Eastern Avenue “to be destroyed and rendered safe.”
It remains unclear what caused the single grenade to detonate, but Luna said the investigation determined that only one device exploded.
The whereabouts of the second grenade remains unknown. Luna said the department has begun an internal investigation into the handling of the situation.
Investigators returned to the Santa Monica apartment building to conduct a more thorough search, and at least two search warrants were executed in Marina del Rey, where authorities were seen searching a boat and a storage facility.
No details of that investigation have been released.
Anyone with information on either of the two devices was asked to call 1-888-ATF-TIPS (8477), or the Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500. Anonymous tipsters can call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).