Episode #25 – NIBIN: Tracking Handgun “Fingerprints”
By Intern David Startsman
At the Cease-Fire Meeting on Friday, June 19, 2009, I had the pleasure to talk with Detective Joe Duerson of the Lexington Police Department. Detective Duerson has been assigned to work with the ATF Task Force, and participates in the Cease-Fire Project. The Cease-Fire Project is collaboration between Lexington law enforcement agencies, Federal law enforcement agencies, and the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office to try and decrease the amount of gun violence occurring in the Lexington-Fayette Urban County area.
The ATF’s NIBIN (National Integrated Ballistics Information Network) is an important tool, used by these agencies, to determine links between crimes where a gun was used. Forensic Technologies first developed the NIBIN equipment and marketed it to the ATF.
The system works by reading the markings left by the gun on the spent bullet casings that are found at crime scenes. Each handgun leaves a unique mark on the bullet casings where the firing pin hits the bullet. These indentations are distinctive of one handgun, similar to human fingerprints. The casings are placed under a microscope and the grooves are registered into the database. If these markings match other bullets that have already been entered into the system, then a firearm’s examiner will take a closer look to determine if there is an actual match. By tracking this information, it gives law enforcement agencies the ability to quickly link crimes together and combine their efforts to catch the suspects using the particular gun.
Cease-Fire Meeting
The service has been instituted in forty-nine states, Kentucky being the only one that does not have their own NIBIN system. Lexington continues to use the system by sending the evidence found at crime scenes to Forensic Technologies offices in Largo, Florida. Each shell casing costs $48.00 to process. By continuing to register information into the database, the Lexington Police Department, and the other members of the Cease-Fire Project, hopes to dramatically decrease the amount of gun crimes occurring in the city of Lexington.
Currently, there are three cases that could be linked to three other cases in the city. There is a wanton endangerment on the north side of town that could be connected to a wanton endangerment in downtown. The second link could also tie together two separate wanton endangerments from around the city. The third connection could come between an assault first with no suspect and another assault first with a suspect. After a possible match is made by the Forensic Technologies, the company will send the evidence to the Kentucky State Police, where their certified firearms examiner will determine if there is actually a connection between the bullet casings found in one crime scene with those found in the other crime scene. If these possible connections turn out to be accurate, then it would help the Lexington Police Department track down the suspects and put these gun carrying criminals behind bars.