Regional Award WinnersGastonia Police Department's Bomb Squad is one of the oldest squads in North Carolina, responding to any agency in need. The squad primarly responds to calls throughout the western region of the state. The squad organized in 1981 and members have successfully completed the FBI hazardous devices school at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. They are active members of the International Association of Bomb Technicians & Investigators (IABTI) and award winners in the IABTI Regional Bomb Squad Olympics. The Bomb Squad averages about three dozen activities a year (about three a month) including bomb threat calls, bomb robot demonstrations, security details, disposals, research, etc.
Memberships and Training
FBI Hazardous Devices School at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala.
Members of the International Association of Bomb Technicians & Investigators.
Hazardous materials technician training.
Tactical explosive breaching training.
Extensive training in robotics.
Advanced training by the ATF in advanced explosives disposal and post blast investigation as well as large vehicle bombs countermeasure strategies, proxy and suicide bombers.
Bomb Squad members bring an array of specialities to the team such as arson investigation, emergency medicine and electronics.
Demonstrations and Training for Businesses
The Bomb Squad offers demos and advanced training for government agencies in subjects such as explosives recognition, booby-traps for tactical and vice operations, and breaching tactics. Members offer training to teach businesses or companies how to prepare, respond and reduce rick or mitigate an actual incident when dealing with threats, suspect devices, or a post blast incident.
Did You Know?
- Only James Bond and TV police go into a building where a bomb is placed to cut wires. Human life is more important than a building. "Disarming" a bomb is incorrect. Bomb Technicians conduct Render Safe Procedures (RSP).
- It's a felony to make and use a homemade bomb or to possess bomb-making materials.
- Homemade bombs are called Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). Because their design, materials, and filler are only limited by the imagination of their creator, they are often considered more dangerous than commercially made ordnance or explosives.
- An explosive pressure wave moves at about 13,000 mph from the point of explosion.
- HMX, one of the fastest explosives, if poured into a garden house 4.5 miles long, will travel that distance from one end to the other in one second if detonated.
- Black powder in Revoluntionary, Civil War, WWI and II ordnance is as explosive and volatile today as it was when it was made. Don't play around with "heirloom" ordnance!
- Treat every suspicious package, object, or "novelty" ordnance as the real deal, because often it is!
