Bomb Team The Santa Cruz County Bomb Team serves the tri-county area, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito.  In 2005 our teams’ membership included seven bomb technicians and four assistants.  Deputy Ben Haines completed his bomb technician training at the FBI sponsored school in Huntsville Alabama and became our newest technician.  Lieutenant Roger Wildey our long time bomb commander retired and a veteran bomb technician was selected as the new commander, Lieutenant Robert Pursley.  As the year ended we saw two more veteran bomb technicians retire, Deputy Robert Costere and Deputy Mark Simmons.  All of the bomb team members work on the team as a volunteer collateral duty.  Our members work fulltime as patrol deputies, court security bailiffs, community policing assignments, and as jail commanders.  This highly trained team of sworn Sheriff's personnel, who in addition to their other various jobs as deputy sheriffs, have assumed the dangerous responsibility of rendering safe improvised explosive and incendiary devices for the tri-county areas (Santa Cruz, Monterey County, and San Benito County).  The team also responds to unstable/hazardous commercial explosives, military ordinances, VIP protection detail requests, conducts post-blast investigations involving evidence collection, interviews, reconstruction and court testimony. Along with these primary tasks, the team supplies training to a large number of law enforcement personnel, fire personnel, and city and county government employees.  Several public educational presentations and demonstrations are conducted throughout the year. The team is outfitted with a bomb robot.  The robot is used to approach suspected devices, and with the use of video technology, the technician can more safely render suspected devices safe.  The bomb robot has also been used in other situations where placing a deputy would be very dangerous. 2005 Bomb Team Statistics: This part-time team was busy in 2005 averaging approximately two calls a month with a total of 27 call-outs.  Along with the bomb call-outs, the team conducted awareness training for our local police departments and participated in community events such as the law enforcement day in the Capitola mall and National Night Out.     In Santa Cruz County the team responded to a total of 19 calls.  One call was a suspicious device found in Nisene Marks State Park, two call-outs each in Scotts Valley and Watsonville City, seven in the City of Santa Cruz and seven in the unincorporated area of the county.  Most notable was a call-out that began as an investigation after the improvised explosive device had detonated, then led to a search warrant of the suspect’s home and ended with the arrest of alleged bomb builder. The team responded to a total of eight calls in Monterey County.  The most significant call in Monterey was an investigation of a pipe bomb that had detonated injuring the alleged bomber.  Our team was joined by members from the ATF and deputies from the Monterey Sheriff’s Department during that investigation.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff 701 Ocean St. Rm. 340 Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Phone: (831)471-1121 sheriff@scsheriff.com Copyright © '06