General Information

The Regional Bomb Squad is a joint team of highly motivated officers who are specially trained in the recognition, construction, handling and rendering-safe of improvised explosives and devices. The Unit consists of members of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office and the Colorado Springs Police Department. The Regional Bomb Squad has a primary response area which includes El Paso, Teller, Lake Park and Chaffee Counties, as well as 33 counties in the southern half of the State of Colorado.

The Regional Bomb Squadt not only responds to calls of explosive devices, military ordnance, suspicious packages, and post blast investigations but also provides training for emergency responders. The Unit supports the mission of the Hazardous Materials Team, both the CSPD and the EPSO tactical teams, the U.S. Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, as well as any other agency in the region needing technical support. Supporting all of these missions leads to a call load of over 200 responses per year.

Public Safety Bomb Technicians (PSBT’s) receive their initial certification at the FBI’s Hazardous Devices School (HDS), located at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. HDS is a demanding six week school in which potential Bomb Technicians learn the skills necessary to locate identify and render safe various types of Improvised Explosive Devices. Due to the ever-changing nature of the mission, PSBT’s are required to re-certify at HDS every three years.

The mission and level of training for Bomb Technicians has significantly increased with incidents like the 1999 Columbine High School shootings, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack, and others. The members of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office Regional Explosives Unit have dedicated themselves to meeting these challenges and pride themselves on being prepared to handle any threat explosives pose to our community.