THAI POLICE OFFICERS GRADUATE
FROM ATF CANINE TRAINING PROGRAM
Join Alumni From 13 Other Countries

FRONT ROYAL, Va. - Six canine trainers and six students from the Royal Thai Police graduated today from the Canine Training Center of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). These new graduates join more than 450 police officers from 13 foreign countries and the United States to complete the premier explosives detection canine training program.

The six Thai trainers spent 16 weeks here, including 10 weeks training the six Thai students. ATF provides each trainer and student with a Labrador retriever dog that completes the training with its handler and goes to Thailand to serve as a team.

ATF's Explosives Detection Canine Course, begun in 1990 in conjunction with the State Department's Office of Anti-Terrorism, has trained 474 teams since its inception. They are currently deployed throughout the United States and in 19 foreign countries, including Iraq, where they assist in counter-terrorism missions and critical infrastructure protection.

"I would like to thank ATF and the U.S. Department of State for sharing their knowledge and expertise," said Senior Sgt. Maj. Chartree Jaipaupair, the Thai team leader. "I will ensure this knowledge will be utilized to enhance our police force so our world will be a safe place."

The Royal Thai Police join foreign alumni from Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia, Poland, and South Africa who have graduated from the ATF program. A class from Qatar is due to complete training in September.

The ATF instructors train the dogs, which are recertified on an annual basis, to be able to recognize and locate 19,000 explosives compounds. They also teach basic detection search of post-blast explosives scenes; vehicle, building and aircraft searches; and open-area searches for weapons and shell casings.

Building on lessons learned in its own highly successful program, ATF has begun to implement national odor recognition testing as part of a scientifically validated program. The testing will help to test and train explosives detection canines used by other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to ensure that the dogs are fully capable of detecting a wide variety of explosive odors commonly used in attacks around the world.

In addition to its counter-terrorism mission, ATF uses its own canine teams as well as ATF-trained federal, state and local canine teams to support public safety in the United States at large events such as Presidential Inaugurations, the G-8 summit, Super Bowl and other major sports events.

ATF is the Department of Justice's lead agency for training explosives detection canines. The explosives detection canine training is part of the extensive explosives, firearms and arson training that the Bureau provides to U.S. and foreign law enforcement. In addition to the training offered in the United States, ATF currently provides explosives training to the Iraqi Police Service, and offers ongoing explosives and firearms training at the three International Law Enforcement Academies maintained by the State Department in Hungary, Botswana and Thailand.

More information on ATF and its programs is at www.atf.gov.

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