On October 10th, 2023 a training accident occurred at Pitches Training Center in Castaic. This accident was the result of a fire that broke out in a trailer that was used for firing training. Investigators could not get close to the scene because of the fire still raging inside where there was ammunition being stored. 

This event left two deputies in critical condition with both of them being rushed to Henry Mayo Hospital then they were transported to Los Angeles County General Hospital. Two other deputies were also injured in this accident, but they both only sustained minor injuries. Nobody could say what the exact injuries the deputies in critical condition were being treated for exactly, all they were able to say was they were treating them for severe burns. 

Since this incident, we found out that while the fire was still going and the LA County Fire Department was on the scene the detention center was put on a

lockdown of all inmates even though the fire was not a threat to the inmates themselves.

 L.A County Sheriff Luna would not name the deputies but said they were both long-time veterans with the department and since the cause of this accident is still under investigation, Sheriff Luna came out and said “We don’t want this to happen again, so we need to know why it happened and get to the bottom of it, so we prevent it from happening again.” 

Saugus senior Connor Callahan shared, “My heart goes out to our local law enforcement when tragedies like this happen it is hard to just sit and be quiet we should do things like petition for safer training areas, and just all around more safety measures to protect those who protect us on a day to day basis and ensuring our safety comes first we should do the same for theirs as they do training exercises to practice the ways they will be keeping us and our communities safe at all costs.”

This being an extremely tragic and horrible event will hopefully spark a change and make safer training simulations for law enforcement, this is especially important because a similar incident happened in 2019 but resulted in no major injuries and could have been a lot worse. This is why we should have safer ways for law enforcement to train and just more safety precautions all around.