Bomb Threat Procedures

We are in the process of reviewing and updating our emergency evacuation and response procedures. For bomb threats, we have in the past included procedures for performing a "sweep" of the office to try to identify suspicious items. The idea was that these sweeps would be done at senior management direction and in conjunction with law enforcement. HR doesn't like the idea of employees performing sweeps of this nature, but our Security Officer said she thinks local law enforcement may require it to give the building the "all clear."

What are your processes and procedures? Do you include an employee sweep of the area?

Thank you in advance for any information you can provide.

A sweep of the facility is performed at the direction of the Security Officer and/or Senior Management.

Your employees should be trained to be aware of their surroundings and observe if any foreign objects/containers/etc. are present that don't belong, and relay their observations, through the SO or other bank-side event coordinator, to law enforcement. But they are not, in all likelihood, bomb experts, and should not be asked to act as such.

What your SO is suggesting is completely backwards, and HR is right to push back on this point. The notion that bank employees, who are not subject matter experts, should determine that it is safe for law enforcement (some of which who are subject matter experts) to enter is illogical.

Just to be clear, I was NOT suggesting employees are instructed to perform a sweep to give law enforcement the all-clear to enter the building. The procedures for sweeps are written to be performed in conjunction with law enforcement. In other words, it would be difficult for law enforcement to enter an office building and determine whether something is out of place, so an employee of that office may be asked to perform a sweep acting WITH law enforcement.

Ok- that makes more sense, thank you for clarifying.

I still think it is not a good idea for an employee to enter a building if there is a potential bomb it. Let the people getting paid to do it handle it. They should know what a bomb looks like. If you check they most likely will not even let a branch employee be part of the process

Good point, Ed- I didn't read the last post closely enough.

I agree with Ed- the employees should not be physically present for the sweep. However, the employees' observations could be of value to the persons conducting the sweep. So any oddities that the employees had observed shoudl be relayed to law enforcement so they can use this information in their sweep, and address specific "high risk" items.

Yes, I had the opportunity to speak with local law enforcement and they recommended employees be trained to quickly look for and note any suspicious items at the time of evacuation. But not that they perform actual bomb sweeps later.

Thanks for the input!