It’s nearly impossible to go through an entire day without a newspaper in any major city detailing a new bombing somewhere in the world. The incident usually involves multiple fatalities and wounded — that’s just the nature of bombs. So far the vast majority occur on foreign soil. But, don’t get complacent, because that’s not going to remain the case. Even prior to September 11th, the FBI recognized the potential dangers and began gearing up local bomb squads. They’ve provided increased levels of training and some of the latest equipment. Police bomb squads are now at their highest ever level of training and expertise.

One area needs improvement. It’s how the bomb squad folks communicate with patrol cops or road officers. Some info is actually secret stuff but there’s a lot that can and should be shared — especially in the area of what cops should be looking for. Nobody can tell you what an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) looks like. The skilled and highly skilled bomb makers build them to look like anything or nothing at all. Just look at the devices built in Iraq.

A skilled bomb-maker starts with the concept of making his bomb look harmless, allowing it to be concealed until detonamay be able to find the bomb under construction and hopefully the bomb-makers.

The Explosives

There are millions of pounds of high explosive and tens of thousands of blasting caps used every year in this country. So, there’s bound to be leakage; the odd few pounds of explosives or blasting supplies that walk off the job site. Or the half case of dynamite Uncle Farnquart bought for blasting stumps that turns up missing from the barn. What do explosives look like? More bad news — they can look like lots of stuff.

Take dynamite out of the wrapper and it looks like oily, grainy sawdust. But the wrappers are identifiable and have traceable information on them. They don’t look like road flares. Most wrappers will be brown to tan in color and have an oily look. They’ll also have manufacture information and a traceable day/date code.

I look for discarded containers as my clue for that kind of material. I also look at how the material is stored. This stuff is valuable to the bomber and he’s going to attach importance to it. So, if you find something you can’t identify but it’s placed somewhere indicating it’s valuable, look into it — very carefully.

Some explosive can be a white paste and come in a plastic tube or a hardened block like C4. Some TNT comes in cylindrical blocks with a white wrapper and ammonium nitrate looks like a big bag of fertilizer.

Blasting Caps

The blasting caps you’ll encounter are likely to be electric. There are some old time fuse caps around but they’re getting harder to find. The caps themselves are very identifiable. But also look for the little labels packed with each cap that read “explosive” and tags indicating the time delay of the cap, or the shunt. The shunt is installed by the factory to short out the leg wires preventing static electricity from accidentally setting the cap off. These are often found on the bombers workbench, or inhis trash — it’s a clue.

Keep your eyes open for extra wire from the caps. The caps can have leg wires 20' long. Our patrol officers found one such young lad had used his extra wire to hook up his car stereo, they recognized the color combo from earlier training. It was top-notch observation netting illegal explosives and resulting in a charge that stuck in court.

Sometimes the blasting caps, almost essential to initiating a bomb electrically, are the most difficult part of a bomb to come up with. Note I said almost. Rocket motors bought in hobby shops can be used two-fold. First they come with an electric match designed to ignite the rocket motor. It can be used to do the same thing for a bomb. The rocket motor itself provides a potential source of improvised filler for something like a pipe bomb. Now, it would not be prudent to assume every purchaser of rocket motors needs to be spread eagled and make snow angels on the asphalt, but the guy that doesn’t fit the profile of someone in the model rocket club might deserve a little extra scrutiny.

Improvised Explosives

Improvised explosives can be a little easier to uncover. Explosives require an oxidizer and a fuel. Don’t throw up your hands and tell me chemistry is beyond you, we aren’t going into rocket science here. Oxidizers are things like ammonium nitrate. Fuels are things like diesel oil. Sound familiar? Those are the ingredients used to turn the Federal Building in Oklahoma City into rubble. Once mixed with diesel or fuel oil, it smells like diesel or fuel oil and that’s worth checking out. Chemical bottles labeled as nitrates, chlorates or perchlorates are potentially part of the bomb makers’ formula. Powdered metals, iron, magnesium, aluminum and some other exotic stuff are often added to explosives to increase the heat and energy generated in the explosion. No one’s asking you to brush up on your chemistry before you hit the street, but be a little curious if you find chemicals not related to drug manufacture in the hands of someone that needs instructions to pour dirt out of a boot. Enough fertilizer to farm 200 acres of tomatoes in your downtown district might be a clue that something’s amiss too.

Let us look at initiating the bomb. Bombers in Iraq depend on command detonation, or some action taken by the victims to trigger the blast. Something as simple as a long wire to a battery or switch controlled by the bomber is working well. Look for the rolls of wire as a part of your bombers kit. They’re also using remote detonation in the form of cell phones, radios and pagers. Look for equipment on the workbench to rewire those kinds of devices to accept blasting caps. Look for micro switches either purchased new or salvaged from old elecbatteries or improvised power sources like the credit card-sized battery found in each discarded pack of Polaroid film.

I also look for the directions or plans. The most obvious form of information these days is the Internet. Downloaded and printed info on how to make a nuke would be considered a clue. But also be alert for the copies of military field training manuals on booby traps and improvised explosive devices. And who could forget the old standby of the ‘60s and ‘70s, “The Anarchist’s Cookbook.” A fair percentage of the recipes noted in this and other such books stand an excellent chance of blowing up the nimrod who mixes them up. Just hope you’re not there when it happens.

Pros And Not So Pros

Some of the people we deal with will be professionals. They are difficult to catch, and it may depend on a chance observation by someone who can put the clues together. There are others who are not so bright. I know of two brothers taught to make pipe bombs by their father. In two separate incidents they each used firecracker fuse to ignite a pipe bomb. Both lost parts of a hand — one right and one left. Now they have to sit next to each other in a movie if they want to clap at the end. Guys like that we can catch, and if we don’t, it’s our fault.

Scott retired after 25 years with Salem PD in Oregon. He spent the last 11 years of his career heading up their Bomb Squad and the 10 years before that on their SWAT Team. If that wasn’t dangerous enough he is now an adjunct instructor for Clint Smith at Thunder Ranch. The man’s a glutton for punishment.