In a routine act of journalism Saturday, two Times reporters went to the home of a Los Angeles police officer to see if she wanted to comment for a forthcoming news article. The article, they told her, would publicly name her for the first time as one of the LAPD bomb squad technicians whose botched fireworks detonation blew up a residential block in South L.A. in 2021.
Their reporting was significant because the explosion — which damaged dozens of buildings, injured 17 people and cost taxpayers millions of dollars — fueled deep anger in the community and complaints about a lack of transparency around the responsible officers.