NEW ORLEANS(WGNO ) —The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives New Orleans Field Division is presenting the “ATF Citizens’ Academy” to create a greater understanding of ATF’s role in the community through education, open discussion, and practical exercises on ATF history and mission, federal firearms laws, firearms/explosives regulations, and licensee inspections.
According to Special Agent in Charge of the New Orleans Division Kurt Thielhorn, “ATF is trying to do this now on a yearly re-occurring basis to give the public a better understanding of what we do, not just see us periodically on the news, because we do a lot more than the nightly news might indicate, but to give a bigger overview of all the programs and the impact we have nationwide.”
Among the programs that are under the charge of the ATF are also explosives explained Tim Boles
Special Agent Certified Explosives Specialist/Bomb Technician, “ATF regulates the explosive industry and the explosives and a blaster or someone that uses explosives in their business, they have to be licensed to do so. But there are explosives out there that can be homemade that be made with things off your shelf from your big box stores.”
And the agency strongly warns against this practice and investigates the misuse of explosives.
Another investigative arm of the ATF is arson, operating state of the art labs for arson investigations and helping local agencies in finding out how fires get started
Senior Special Agent Hank Meyer is a Certified Fire Investigator said, “ATF capitalizes on partnerships with state and local fire departments fire investigative units. We work in tandem with those fire investigative units to bring a very defined expertise as certified fire investigators to the field to work on those partnerships to assist everybody in determining origin and cause of fires.”
On this day, a very engaged first class of citizens witnessed the explosives and arson demos, learning methods of solving incidents that included help from K-9s as well.
The national rise in violent crime also shifts the work of the ATF locally in helping to solve those incidents in the region.
“We work, I can say daily with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, New Orleans Police Department, and the surrounding other parishes and police departments every day. We have task force officers that they give to us and we focus in their areas. We’re out every day. Unfortunately it’s a daily event to see where shootings are occurring, where people are being murdered, and we want to do our part to help solve those crimes and hold people accountable,” said Thielhorn.
The Citizens’ Academy is hosted once a year and is open to approximately 20 students per class. For more information about ATF and its programs visit www.atf.gov.