Garfield High School in East Los Angeles was evacuated on Monday morning after explosives were discovered nearby during a law enforcement investigation, sheriff’s officials said.
Students from Garfield and Monterey Continuation High School were relocated to Griffith STEAM Magnet Middle School, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Brenda Serna and LAUSD officials.
Serna said LASD was assisting in the operation in which law enforcement officers from another county were serving a search warrant in the 400 block of Vancouver Avenue. She assured Boyle Heights Beat that the activity was not related to immigration enforcement.
Officials later confirmed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was involved in the operation, along with the CAL Fire Office of the State Fire Marshal Arson and Bomb Unit, and the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office. Several items were discovered that require assistance from bomb squad and fire hazmat teams. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department said they were dispatched at 9:17 a.m. and were assisting with health hazmat.
According to several media reports, authorities were seen taking what appeared to be a cache of fireworks from the front yard of a nearby home. Because explosives were found within 1,000 feet of a school, Garfield High was evacuated as a precautionary measure, officials said. Surrounding homes were also evacuated, Serna said. Evacuations were lifted around 4:15 p.m., an LASD spokesperson said.
In a message to parents, Carlos Montes, a regional director for the LA Unified’s East Los Angeles Network of Schools, said all staff and students were temporarily relocated “due to extensive law enforcement activity” near Garfield High.
Montes noted that district protocols were followed and that the school community is safe.
Parents then picked up their students on 4th Street in front of the Griffith STEAM Magnet Middle School.
“Please note that early pickup is not necessary — all students are safe and supervised,” Montes said in an updated message.
Video shared with Boyle Heights Beat showed students walking for blocks as they were being evacuated. The Los Angeles School Police Department and administrators escorted the students, school officials said.
Outside Griffith Middle School, long lines of parents waiting to pick up their children wrapped around the campus.
Carolina Garcia, whose daughter is a senior at Garfield High, said parents learned about the students’ relocation from their own kids and from other parents.
It wasn’t until later, she said, that the district released information.
“Us parents were very worried because we didn’t know what was happening,” Garcia said in Spanish.
Once parents arrived at Griffith, “there was so much chaos,” she said.
“This made us realize that they were not prepared to sufficiently handle an emergency,” Garcia said.
Garcia was upset that students had to walk to the middle school, despite being escorted by law enforcement. She wondered why students weren’t relocated by school buses and feared they could have been exposed if something had happened with the suspected explosives.
Dana Guerrero said she had waited in line for about 2 1/2 hours to verify that she had guardianship of a child she was picking up. Actually picking up the student required her to wait in another line.
“It’s a huge mess… It took them almost an hour to even call us to let us know what was happening,” she said. “I actually got the message from my brother, and I called my son, and that’s how I found out. I didn’t even find out by the school.”
Robert Calderon and his wife had been waiting to pick up their son since 9:30 a.m.
Although he was frustrated by the situation, he said he was grateful that his son and other students were safe.
“I think they did enough of an adequate job to get them over here. The process is frustrating — four hours, and it’s really tested the human condition and our patience,” he said.
Mario Flores and David Hernandez live together on one of the blocks evacuated on Vancouver Avenue. The evacuation order came as a shock to the men, who referred to their block as a “quiet neighborhood.” They had been asked to leave by law enforcement around 9:30 a.m. and remained outside as of 2 p.m.
“We’ve been waiting here ever since. Waiting for them to say something, but nothing yet. Waiting, waiting waiting…,” Flores said. “This is the first time something major like this has happened here.”
Flores said he knew the person living at the property at the center of the investigation since he was a child and never thought his neighbor would be at the center of a multi-agency investigation.