Stephen,

Do you often speak of things that you obviously have no knowledge of? You don’t know all the facts of this case. If you would get off of your high horse and read the obituary of the murdered Senior Trooper, you would see that he was highly experienced and an expert in explosives. (http://legacy.com/statesmanjournal/Obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=121450840) Bad things happen, even when proper policies are followed. That is why they are called accidents. To call people who risk their lives for ungrateful, cowardly jerks like you “retards” and “F***ing idiots” is disgusting.

While the Source doesn’t endorse Mr. Pearcy’s characterization of the officers, bomb experts agree that the technician, despite his experience, made a “fatal” mistake.

This from Tuesday’s Oregonian

Experts surprised at bomb technician’s fatal mistake

National experts say they were surprised to learn that an Oregon State Police Bomb Squad technician was confident the green metal box found outside a Woodburn West Coast Bank branch was a “hoax device” based solely on his inspection using a portable X-ray machine.

“An X-ray is just not 100 percent. You may miss something because there’s so many variables,” said Hal Lowder, an Atlanta-based explosives expert. “It sounds like he made a judgment call, just a bad call.

“I hate to say bad things, but taking a bomb apart is just not done anymore.”

The bomb exploded after state police bomb technician William Hakim carried it inside the bank and then tried to open it with the help of a Woodburn police chief and captain.

Experts say bomb technicians are trained to keep their hands off a device and instead send in a robot to disrupt it where it’s found.

The Oregon State Police Bomb Squad, to which Hakim was assigned, got a new Explosive Ordinance Disposal vehicle through a 2006 grant that carries important bomb-detection tools including robots, disrupters, protective suits and a containment vessel. But the vehicle, based in Salem, was not at the bank when Hakim responded Friday, nor were any bomb detection robots used, said Lt. Gregg Hastings, a state police spokesman.

Hastings said he did not know why the bomb squad’s explosion disposal vehicle wasn’t there, and was not sure what equipment was available at the scene Friday. The state police will ask the FBI to conduct an independent inquiry into the police response after the criminal investigation, Hastings said.

Lowder and Kevin Barry, who spent 20 years with the New York City Police Department’s Bomb Squad before retiring in 2002 and now is spokesman for the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators, said once a suspicious device is located, bomb squads generally are trained to use a remote-controlled robot to examine it, and either carry it to a contained trailer, or disrupt it where it’s found.

Robots equipped with cameras are generally used to approach and examine a suspicious device. Using the robots, bomb technicians can disrupt or blow up the device, using water cannons, shotguns shells or small explosives, the experts said. If a robot isn’t available, there’s a “roping” option, tying a string to the device to pick it up or jerk it.

“Typically, we tell everybody to treat every device as if it’s real,” said Lowder, who retired as a fire and explosion investigator with the Metro Atlanta Fire Department in 2003.

X-rays alone aren’t reliable, are often subject to interpretation and can be affected by weather or film processing, experts said. An X-ray can’t always pick up an explosive in a suspicious device. “You can X-ray a package and it might have sand in it. But you can’t tell what it is,” Barry said. “You don’t know if it’s sand or smokeless powder. X-rays can be deceiving because it’s affected by density. ”

The fact that the device detonated as it was being opened “means it could have been booby-trapped,” Barry said. “It could have had multiple switches, all set up to kill whoever comes near it.”

Generally, experts say, the only time a technician is instructed to do what’s called a “hand entry” is if there’s an immediate threat, such as a large crowd around, and the technician thinks a device is about to go off and needs to immediately render it safe.

Experts also questioned why a local captain and chief, who apparently were not certified as bomb technicians, were handling the device. As a routine, bomb squads do not allow untrained local authorities near a device.

In larger cities there are multiagency law enforcement teams available to respond to bomb threats. Woodburn police called in the Oregon State Police Bomb Squad. Hakim, a certified bomb technician since 1997, was one of the three troopers assigned to the squad’s Salem office.

In the Woodburn case, Lowder and Barry said that the bomber may have purposely called in a threat and left a hoax device at the nearby Wells Fargo Bank to throw off law enforcement when assessing the threat of the second device. After several calls, “unfortunately, the danger is you can let down your guard a little,” Lowder said.

“Since 9/11, these things have become so routine. We see so many hoax devices. You get in a routine,” Lowder said. “And then there’s that one time, that one in a million chance. That’s why we always stress keeping your fingers out of it.”