The explosion at the Central Booking and Detention facility is going to a grand jury.

State Attorney Bill Eddins made that announcement by news release this morning.

The State Attorney Office review came as part of an “extensive and comprehensive investigation” by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the State Fire Marshal’s Office, and the Office of the State Attorney.

The grand jury will begin considering this matter on Sept. 30 and will continue until they are completed.

“As part of their review, the grand jury will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to establish that any crime was committed,” the news release states. “The grand jury may also consider any other issues surrounding the jail explosion as they deem appropriate.

Grand jury proceedings are confidential.

The explosion at Central Booking came on April 30 and was caused by a natural gas leak came on the heels of an historic rainfall that flooded the basement.

Central booking housed some 607 people at the time. The explosion killed two inmates, paralyzed a corrections officer and injured 184 people.

Assistant State Attorney Greg Marcille said last week that his office’s findings differ “substantially” from those reported by local attorney Ed Fleming to Escambia County Commissioners recently.

“Ours was substantially more in-depth and involved the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the state fire marshal’s office and our office, numerous witnesses and other types of evidence,” Marcille said.

Fleming was tasked with investigating the explosion in terms of potential civil liability, including federal civil rights violations. He wrote that he found no evidence that jail staff ignored reports of the smell of gas ahead of the explosion.

“We focused on whether county officials in charge of the jail ignored reports of a gas leak during the hours preceding the blast as reported by various media,” Fleming wrote. “We found no such evidence” based on interviews with staff on duty at the time of the blast, maintenance records and nursing staff notes.

Fleming’s report, linked here, indicates that it is believed that the natural gas dryers in the basement were not bolted to the floor, “despite contract specifications that instructed the contractor to ‘bolt, level and group all equipment as necessary,’” Fleming wrote.

“The risk of unattached gas dryers in a flood are so well known within the industry that the building code requires bolting in a “flood hazard” area. Although the CBF had not been designed (sic) as a ‘flood hazard’ area, and thus the failure to attach the dryers was not a code violation, the contractor had actual knowledge that the basement was prone to flooding, and thus knew or should have known that bolting of the dryers was “necessary” to avoid a gas leak risk.

“I found no evidence that the County knew that the specification had been ignored.”

The Escambia County public information office issued a statement just before noon that said county staff would cooperate fully with the State Attorney's Office throughout the process.

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