How Bomb Squads Approach Suspicious Packages

MACON, Georgia (41 NBC) – Sgt. Billy Skinner is with the Macon Police Department Bomb Squad. He was on the scene for the suspicious package scare at the Amstar 16 movie theater and also the suspicious package alert at City Hall on Monday.

He told 41 NBC what happens when the bomb squad is called and also how they approach situations or threats.

“There’s no such thing as a false call, basically if we determine calls as either being a threat was found or a threat wasn’t found, we never say this is a false call,” Skinner said.

They also address each situation with certain procedures as well.

“Without there being a threat, there’s certain procedures that we go through in order to determine what the bag is, what the content of the bag is, once we determine that it’s not a threat then we can go to the next step.”

As of late, the public generally assumes that suspicious packages are book bags or brief cases. Sgt. Skinner says that a “suspicious package” could be anything.

“A suspicious package to one person may not be supicious to another person, uh the thing is once it is determined to be a suspicious package we as the bomb squad or bomb technician, we’re not going to second guess you, we’re going to approach it as the same way as being suspicious.”

Bibb County Sheriff David Davis explained what the public should do if they notice something that’s out of place.

“It’s always probably better not to touch something like that to go ahead and notify the management of someone who’s in charge of the location where you’re at,” Davis said. “Then when nobody comes to claim it, then it’s time to get law enforcement involved.”

When law enforcement get’s involved, they approach every situation with caution, using robots or other methods to keep people safe.

“We try and have as many options available to us as possible and then once we arrive on scene and we evaluate the situation, then we pick the technique we choose to use,” Skinner said.