SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is training local military and law enforcement agencies on post-blast investigative techniques. CBS 8 caught up with instructors at the Republic Services Sycamore Landfill in Santee where they've been teaching students how to process a bombing scene.
ATF agents detonated improvised explosive devices (IED) in three vehicles Wednesday to create a realistic blast scene for students to investigate.
“We always want to be one step ahead of a bad guy,” said Giovanni Guillem, an Explosives Safety Officer in the U.S. Navy. He is one of about thirty people from agencies across Southern California taking part in the course.
The group has been in the classroom all week but started putting their new skills to the test Thursday while collecting evidence in and around the three vehicles staged in the blast scene.
“We’re going to go back and recreate the scene to put the pieces back together to see what they utilized, you know, the bad guy as far as a device," explained Guillem. "How did they detonate it? What kind of damage did it cause? What materials are out there that are being used in 2024?”
The participants broke into three teams Thursday afternoon and began surveying the burned-out vehicles, while marking and collecting any evidence from the scene.
“We create a real improvised explosive device. We control its detonation obviously but we want to make the devices as real as possible. That way we give the students as realistic a device to work on and recreate as possible,” said Special Agent Bomb Technician Randall Dockens.
Dockens is part of the training staff for ATF. He told CBS 8 that it's important to share these types of investigative techniques with other agencies.
“Thankfully bombings are still a rare occurrence in the United States but we believe that the need to prepare for those investigations is important, so we want to give them those skills before they ever have to use them,” said Dockens.
Participating law enforcement agencies include San Diego Police, San Diego County Sheriff’s Bomb Squad, San Diego Harbor Police, and San Diego Fire-Rescue Bomb Squad to name a few. The 40-hour course will add to the skills the participants already have, and it will aid them in future investigations and potential prosecutions.
“This kind of stuff does help us stay one step ahead of everything that’s out there because we don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring," said Guillem. "And you know, you train, you train, you train, so when it comes time to have to fight, you’re ready.”
The week-long course will conclude Friday as the three teams present their investigative findings to the rest of the class.