Twenty-four officers attached to the Central Detective Unit (CDU) graduated from a terrorist crime scene investigation course on Friday.

The officers, who participated, were from CDU here in New Providence as well as Abaco, Grand Bahama, Exuma, Eleuthera among others.

The Terrorist Crime Scene Investigation Training was a two-week course that provided the officers with the opportunity to learn the latest international forensics standards for documenting, collecting and preserving crime scene evidence.

The training and equipment grant, valued at approximately $60,000, was provided by the U.S. Government through the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

CDU Chief, Superintendent Paul Rolle, congratulated the officers.

He also said that he was proud of them as the average grade on the examinations was 90 per cent.

“It’s always good to be prepared,” Superintendent Rolle said.

“We haven’t had any acts of terrorism here and we don’t want any. The training doesn’t only extend in preparation for terrorism but also prepares the officers for dealing with homicides, if there is a major accident like a plane crash and other police training. It equips them with knowledge to deal with any eventually so we encourage ongoing training.”

The CDU chief said officers will be able to put the training to use right away in their respective fields.

“We had some last year and our solvency rate went up,” he said.

“We also like to expose the newer officers to these kinds of courses.”

The training focused on the preparation and initial actions when responding to a crime scene; scene management and narrative description; crime scene approach, survey, and planning; physical evidence search, photographing, note taking and sketching; and conducting a final survey prior to release of the scene.

Participants demonstrated their mastery of these skills in a final course exercise where they worked as teams to process mock terrorism crime scenes.