ATF bomb training resides at Redstone Arsenal

A blast ripped the chilly air on the north bank of the Tennessee River on Thursday morning. Two more blasts followed, sending glass and shrapnel flying as three cars are blown apart. As the smoke cleared, blast damage to the cars was clear. There was no glass left in the windows, and the hood and trunk were blown open.

This isn’t a crime scene, but it could be. The shattered glass and shrapnel are evidence for students learning how to learn what happened and who did it. The students are part of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Basic Post Blast Investigative Techniques class. The bureau uses the Capano Range on the southern end of Redstone Arsenal to conduct these controlled explosions.

This basic post-blast course is designed to teach a systematic method of investigating an explosion scene. The course provides instruction in explosives identification and applications, explosives effects, improvised explosive device component recognition and evidence collection.

The course comprises classroom participation, an explosives demonstration and an actual investigation of a post-blast scene, according to the ATF website.

The U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms National Center for Explosives Training and Research located on Redstone Arsenal offers students from all over the world a chance to learn about explosives.

“This is the hub of all bomb training,” William Curl, a Huntsville Police Department bomb technician, said. “Our major school for public safety bomb techs is right down the road with the FBI and then you have the ATF training here, too.”

While the class gives students, all either military or full-time public safety officials, technical skills to understand a bomb scene, it also helps build confidence in the investigators, said Todd Tinetti, a bomb squad specialist with the Orlando Fire Department.

“It gives us confidence,” Tinetti said. “I’m coming here and then teaching my guys what I learned here. We’ll bring this knowledge to our crime scene unit and go from there and help develop our own training program.”

Just then, two explosions sound off from another test range on the south end of Redstone Arsenal. “Boom!” Curl said. “The Arsenal is doing something.”

After all, Redstone Arsenal is the hub of all bomb training.