On Saturday August 9th, Federal Bureau of Investigation special agents were shooting target practice and firearm training at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shooting range at the Pitchess facility when apparently things got a little out of hand.
The incident resulted in numerous personally owned and county owned vehicles with bullet holes and an inmate grazed by a bullet.
The use of the range is part Memorandum Of Understanding between the agencies and from what sources tell us, the federal agents, defying all logic and reason, decided to lay flat on their bellies and shoot upwards at paper targets that were only 5 yards away, at a sharp angle which caused the rounds to go through the targets, over a safety berm, then over a hill and into unsuspecting personally owned and county owned vehicles. One errant round struck an inmate, who had using the phone, in the cheek. The inmate suffered minor injuries similar to a burn or abrasion.
Map of range area at Pitchess Detention CenterPhoto byThe Current Report
After the devastating NCCF trailer fire that injured two ultimately resulting the death of a deputy sheriff, the LASD closed down all trailer operations, necessitating they take back the range they had offered to the Feds and other agencies to use.
A new range was then built where the August 9th incident occurred, which is fortunate, in that if they had been at the original range used by the Feds,
the incident could have resulted in live rounds potentially raining down on the 5 Freeway.
All things considered, it appears that the citizens of LA County may have dodged a few bullets on this one.
