PICKING UP THE PIECES...AND BUILDING A CASE FROM IT
FBI School for Large Vehicle Bombs
10/11/05
The
bomb that ripped through a bus in the California
desert in 2003 created more than a small
crater—it formed a 75-acre crime scene.
The huge explosion, detonated for a select
class of experienced bomb scene investigators
at the FBI’s Large Vehicle Bomb Post-Blast
Crime Scene School, replicates a 2002 bomb
blast overseas that killed more than 200
people.
Students
didn’t get to watch the empty bus
explode—real investigators rarely
do witness such bombings. Instead, the students
get to pick up the pieces—literally—from
the scattered wreckage that set the forensic
groundwork for a criminal or terrorist investigation.
“It’s
up to them to see what kind of vehicle blew
up,” said Special Agent Kevin Miles,
who coordinates the week-long school. “You’d
be surprised at how much is left. The students
just have to find it.” And then build
a case from the clues.
The
post-blast school—coordinated out
of our Los Angeles field office, supported
by the FBI
Laboratory, and taught by active or
retired Special Agent bomb technicians—used
to be a basic lesson on working a car-bomb
scene—from forensics and equipment
to crime scene mapping and processing. Miles
said it evolved to a “graduate level”
curriculum in 1998 so law enforcement and
military investigators with plenty of bomb
scene experience can get practical training
in the crime scenes created by large-vehicle
explosions.
The
FBI has sponsored more than 70 classes around
the nation—and two overseas—since
the school was launched seven years ago.
The sheer size of the explosions limits
where they can convene; a 6,000-pound bomb,
for example, might spread a field of evidence
across 225 acres, Miles said. Fortunately,
the U.S. military has provided bases with
huge barren acreage for the classes and
even donated vehicles to blow up.
“We
couldn’t do this at all if we didn’t
have the support of our partners in the
military,” said Miles, adding that
bomb technicians deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan
get first crack on the maximum 50 slots
of a given class.
For
students—some 2,400 have undergone
training—the intensive classes have
two side benefits: they reveal how other
organizations pursue investigations and
build partnership among the diverse participants.
“It’s
always good to see … the way
different departments handle things,” Suffolk
County, New York, Police Officer Mark
Lazina said during a class in August
at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada
.
It’s
not until the end of the week—after
students have gathered their evidence in
teams and presented their “case”
to a judge or district attorney—that
they get to see a video of the explosion
and to find out if their case was sound.
Resources:
Related
Story on the FBI Hazardous Devices School
| Watch
a Video of the FBI’s Crime Scene School
at Naval Air Station Fallon (August 05)
