and remove one incendiary devices. but the police officer who spoke said it was indeed set up to detonate. i m joined on the phone by former fbi supervisor and terrorism and bomb expert rick hahn. rick, i know we were cut off earlier. thanks for joining me again. when you look at what these guys are doing, is there any way they re being overcautious given what they believe is it inside? i mean thshgs is pathis is painstakingly slow. there s one device removed, as many as 60 reportedly inside. oh, absolutely. they are in no way being too painstaking. the problem, again, is that they simply cannot tell exactly how these devices may be fused. and their safety and the safety of anyone else that may be in the area is at risk here. so i don t think there s any way that they could rush this at all. so we re looking at i mean, how long? they physically have to clear either one of those windows that
take a look? no, i don t think at this point that they would want to let personnel in, but the good news is that they successfully disrupted at least one fusing mechanism. and depending upon how many of these devices were fused together, there may be another dozen, there may be another 30 fusing mechanisms that they ll want to disrupt. but the bottom line is that they successfully did one so your chances of success with successive ones is greatly enhan enhanced. this is the kind of painstaking process they may have to set up. talk about the precision needed, rick, to successfully do what they ve apparently just done. when you say you re looking at something the size of a shotgun, did you say, casing or a shell? it s very similar to a shotgun, and it s typically they operate these things from a robot. the robot goes in with its cameras, looks at the device. they analyze it, try and
others around is the number one issue here. evidence is purely a secondary type of issue. and, even if they opened up the entire ceiling of that apartment, whether or not they could move or remove those items safely is completely an open question at this point in time. yeah. hey, rick, can these things be very rudimentary and be that effective? or do they have to be more sophisticated? no, alex. you know, unfortunately, explosive powders and incendiary devices can be extremely effective. the only limiting factor here is that, at least through the camera, the police know the sort of quantities they re dealing with. based on the quantities they ve set up what s the safe area of evacuation for these devices. yeah. and, to that end, rick, please don t leave us. i m bringing in nbc s mike taibbi who s live on the scene, joins us on the phone. mike, with regard to the evacuation area, how large an area is that?
explain that a little further. how can you have some sort of explosion or a disruptor when you re looking at a place that s not all that large and packed with some 60 different devices? how big are these things? the disruptor itself is approximately the size of a shotgun, and in fact the shell it fires is very similar to a shotgun shell in terms of its explosive load. it could very well be that that window, if there s aa window blown out, is a result of that disruptor functioning inside the apartment. i want to let all of you know, one way the aurora police department is getting its message out is via twitter. they have just tweeted that the detonation was successful. so, far you, mike taibbi, there on scene, that s good to know. now, where that leads us is uncertain. and to you, rick, if they have been able to successfully work on trip wires, as you re suggesting, would that then immediately allow personnel to get inside the apartment and
very good at being able to disrupt devices. so the objective here would be to disrupt the fusing mechanism so that the main charge or main incendiary does not function. and that certainly is a possibility when they talk about the controlled detonations, that s exactly what they re talking about. you know, i want to ask you in your role as an fbi supervisor and expert on terrorism, rick, the mind of someone who s capable of doing this, is this a mad genius? it. well, i think that s an excellent question. i think you ve hit upon something that s a real possibility here, that this is a person who s obviously pretty bright, very bright, took the time to learn how to do these things, set this up, and at the same time is completely a madman with not the same respect for human life the rest of us have. rick hahn, thank you so much.