[intense nervous music]

[explosion blasting]

[explosion blasting]

[explosion blasting]

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[Narrator] Improvised explosion devices,

there's no set standard on how that's gonna look.

So every time we encounter a device, it's different

and we have to take all the precautions

necessary to protect ourselves.

[Narrator] Fire in the hole.

[explosion blasting]

My name is John Stewart.

I'm a FBI agent.

I'm a unit chief of the Hazardous Devices School.

[suspenseful music] I started off

in the United States Navy.

I was an enlisted EOD tech for 12 years

and then was hired as an FBI agent.

My primary mission was to provide support

to our state and local bomb technicians.

I've responded to a number of calls.

Those calls resulted in the discovery of military ordnance,

hand grenades, improvised explosion laboratories

where people are making homemade explosives.

Those calls resulted in us disrupting pipe bombs.

If they needed me to dress out in a bomb suit

and go to a range, I'm trained and capable to do that.

If they need me for post blast experience

to help them collect evidence,

we're there to help them do that because that all

falls in the category of bomb technician responsibilities.

I worked a number of cases on the international

terrorism side, I spent approximately two years

in Afghanistan working as a FBI bomb technician

conducting post blast analysis and analysis of IEDs

for the US government.

[explosion blasting] So if something blew up

out in town, we would go out

and do a post blast investigation,

recover all the components we could find,

bring that back into a controlled environment

and then try to recreate and determine

exactly how that IED functioned.

And then I was able to come to the Hazardous Devices School

and become a certified public safety bomb technician.

[explosion blasting]

IED means improvised explosive device.

By the mere term, it's improvised

and they come in all shapes and forms.

They have to have some type of power supply

or some type of way to get heat into the explosives.

They have to have some type of switch.

They have to have some type of container

and they have to have conductors

and wires and things like that.

When you take an x-ray of an IED,

you're looking for the key components.

You're looking for the explosive charge,

you're looking for the switch,

and you're looking for battery power to determine

whether it's an IED or not.

There are two different types of explosives.

There are high explosives and low explosives

and those really are based on the deflagration or burn rate

or the ability for the explosives

to change from a solid to a gaseous state.

Low explosives burn or deflagrate and high explosives

change from solid to a gas in microseconds.

[explosion blasting]

When we're dealing with IEDs,

some can be a low explosive or a powder,

some can be high explosives.

Military ordnance uses high explosives inside of it.

Low explosives are typically seen

in some type of contained vessel

like a pipe bomb or a pressure cooker.

The pressure cooker is a standard

pressure cooker that holds pressure,

has a low explosive in it that burns

and as it burns the pressure cooker

contains the low explosive build up

until it can't contain it anymore and then it overcomes

the pressure cooker and explodes.

It's a mechanical explosion.

[crowd cheering] [distant announcer talking]

[explosion blasting]

[screaming]

As you know, the Boston bombing,

they used pressure cookers in there.

Everyone who was able to watch that on TV

and see it through news reports witnessed what happened.

So we had several bombs that blew up

on the streets of Boston. [sirens blaring]

Fellas, watch for secondary devices!

Following that event,

there was an evacuation that occurred.

They removed the wounded.

The bomb technicians then have to go in and do some

threat assessment and analyze everything left to determine

whether there's any more bombs in the area.

As you can imagine there are backpacks

and boxes all over the street,

and so they have to go and threat assess

their way through all of those packages

to determine if there's any more bombs

that pose a potential danger for the public.

We categorize IEDs into three different categories.

We have victim initiated which means the victim

has to do something to make it go off.

We have time, which means in a certain amount of time

it's gonna detonate and then we have radio controlled

or remote control which means someone else

is controlling when that device is gonna detonate.

An improvised explosive device presents

a number of personal injury issues.

Of course there's a fragmentation issue that comes with it.

The fragmentation is gonna break windows,

it's gonna penetrate skin, it's gonna hurt people,

it's gonna destroy property.

Every explosion carries a thermal effect,

so like a heat wave or heat ball

or fire ball that comes off.

There's a potential for things to catch on fire and burn

because of the fire ball that comes off of that explosive.

[explosion blasting]

And then there's what we refer to as the blast wave.

It's the invisible wave of pressure that flies out.

[explosion blasting]

The blast pressure affects glass, it affects ear drums,

internal organs, and things like that.

But we have calculations that we use to determine

how far to evacuate people to help us to provide

better protection from fragmentation and overpressure.

[intense nervous music]

The Hazardous Devices School curriculum

was originally developed by the Department of the Army.

We took the tactics, techniques, and procedures

that the military was teaching their bomb techs

when they were dealing with IEDs

and we used that same information

to develop our original curriculum back in 1971.

The Vietnam War was drawing down and bomb technicians

from the Vietnam War were coming back,

going to work for police departments

and performing bomb tech activities.

This school is designed to train

public safety law enforcement who have no information

about bombs, all the techniques, tactics, and procedures

to be deployed and used

when they're working on suspicious devices.

During training there are a number of key areas

we like bomb techs to leave here with.

I think the most important one is their ability

to conduct a threat assessment.

To look at something and to try to determine

in their mind why it's there and what's potentially

gonna cause it to go off.

You have to know electronics so when you're analyzing

your x-rays and you see certain things in the x-ray,

you have to be able to determine what they are.

You have to know how to run a robot,

just in case you can do it remotely.

You have to know how to use explosives

because a lot of the tools they use in the field

are explosively-driven tools.

So you have to know how to safely handle explosives

to load those tools and place them and fire them.

[explosion blasting]

[sirens rapidly blaring]

Bomb squads across America receive bomb calls all the time.

Once their dispatch receives a call,

they make a notification to the bomb squad.

The bomb squad then goes to the scene.

Once there, they meet with an on scene commander

or the individual in charge

and they try to gather some intelligence.

What is it, where is it, how did it get there,

how long has it been there,

al of those questions are asked.

Another big important part is,

is there an evacuation that has occurred?

Have we moved all the people out far enough so if this thing

were to detonate before we made it down range,

they wouldn't be hurt?

Once all of that is taken place,

there's a determination, do we do this remotely with robots

or do we have to put someone in the bomb suit?

If we can perform all the actions we need with a robot,

it's sent down range to perform x-rays.

They can fire tools off of the robot,

they can do a number of things

that prevents a bomb technician

from having to get into a bomb suit

and actually going down range.

[explosion blasting] [murmuring]

But on occasion there are times

when the robot will not work.

Depending on where the device is at,

depending on the complex situation we have,

there's potential for the bomb technician

to actually have to get in a bomb suit

and go down and do the initial work.

Make an assessment of the device,

perform passive diagnostics,

take x-rays, and then place a disruption tool.

Once that's done, everybody falls back to a safe area

and they perform an action to disrupt that package.

So the process of putting the bomb technician

in the bomb suit is fairly easy

but it takes a number of people to do it.

So right now they're putting on the trousers.

The trousers are Kevlar and Nomex

and they provide protection to the lower extremities.

There's also a back protector that provides very limited

protection to your back.

So after the trousers are on,

the bomb technicians will affix

the integrated groin protector and that provides limited

thermal protection and ballistic protection

to the groin area.

He's now putting on a balaclava.

That helps provide protection to the helmet

and absorb the sweat and the bomb technician

is performing his duties.

The next piece of equipment

that will go on the bomb technician is the helmet.

That's the EOD 9 helmet.

That's a visor that moves up and down.

So when the bomb tech is down range next to the device,

he would have the visor pulled down.

The next piece of equipment they'll put on is the jacket.

It is a Nomex Kevlar make up.

The big black plate you see on the front

is a Kevlar shield.

It provides maximum protection from fragmentation

to the vital organ area.

They then tighten Velcro around the wrist of the jacket,

providing the bomb technician dexterity

with his fingers while he's working.

On the left side you will see a control panel.

That control panel controls the fan inside of the helmet

to help control body temperature.

It also helps the shield from fogging up

and there's lights on the helmet that the bomb tech,

if desired, can turn on.

Right now they're gonna raise the collar up,

providing protection for the neck area

between the gap where the helmet and the jacket meet.

So you'll notice that the hands are not covered.

That's for maximum dexterity.

The bomb tech needs to be able to work with tools

and if you put gloves on him,

it restricts his ability to use his fingers and hands.

[intense curious music]

Once the bomb squad arrives on scene

and they collect their intelligence,

they have to determine what type of approach they make.

If they determine that they have to put a bomb technician

down for time on target, there's a couple things

that they need to do.

So they'll dress the bomb technician out in the bomb suit

and then they wanna walk down range

and conduct a threat assessment

and some diagnostics of that package.

One way they conduct diagnostics is through their vision.

What is it, where's it at,

and why is it sitting where it's sitting?

Next thing they would do is take a x-ray of the package.

This machine generates x-rays that run through the package

and presents an image on a phosphorus panel.

The bomb tech would put the phosphorus panel

behind the suspect package and then generate some pulses

with this to get an x-ray.

They'll also bring down some tools to do some work

because we like to minimize time on target.

That's time that a person is standing next to the device.

And they'll place those after they perform their x-ray

for a standard general purpose shot.

They'll go back and develop the x-ray

and if the x-ray has determined that it is an actual device

they will fire those tools

without ever having to approach the device again.

This is a pan disruptor.

Very common in the bomb technician world.

It's a percussion actuated, non-electrically fired device.

the pan disruptor is a steel tube

that uses shotgun cartridges.

We'll fill this tube full of water.

We'll plug it on the end.

We'll put a blank shotgun shell

into the end of it and then we use what is called a breech.

It has a firing pin that is then projected forward

by an explosively-driven shockwave from shock tube.

[Woman] Three, two, one.

[explosion blasting]

That way, we can fire that remotely and the bomb

technician doesn't have to be anywhere around the package.

Another tool that's very common is a mineral water bottle.

On the interior of this bottle is a plastic

tube that's filled with C4 explosives.

This is an omnidirectional tool

so when you detonate the C4,

that water is gonna strike the package

and hopefully disrupt the suspect package

that we're working on.

This can be fired a number of different ways,

but typically it's fired with a Primadet

with non-electric shock two.

A Primadet is nothing more than a non-electric type

blasting cap that is hooked to shock tube

and there's basically an explosive wave that goes down

and it initiates the explosives in the tube.

One of the tools available

to the bomb technician is a hydrojet.

This is a 32 ounce hydrojet.

It's a directional charge,

which means it's filled with water.

This plastic sheet inside is formed to make a V.

You would take data sheet or sheet explosives

and affix it to this V.

It then goes back into the hydrojet that is full of water

and it's fired with a Primadet.

Once it's fired, the projection of the explosives

drives the water into a knife

and cuts through suspect packages.

[explosion blasting]

[intense curious music]

Since the inception of the curriculum,

there's been a lot of change in the bomb tech community.

Explosives are still the same.

IEDs, the devices that we deal with,

but of course with computers and being able to get online

and research, the sophistication of those have risen.

[mechanical whirring]

Most importantly is our tools that we use

to do diagnostics and disrupt IEDs

have increased dramatically.

[explosion blasting]

Our x-ray systems are some of the best in the world.

Our disruption tools are some of the best in the world

and they're all designed to provide more protection

for the bomb tech while he's performing those duties,

which in turn provides more protection for our public.

Typically, procedures that are trained

here at the Hazardous Devices School

are employed out in our cities and states across America.

It happens often, where bomb squads

are notified of suspicious packages.

That happens across America every day.

There's no playbook that says, if it's this, do this.

Or if it's that, do that.

We have to use the tools and techniques that we're taught.

We have to use a good threat assessment

and we have to work our way

through every single problem we encounter.