Category Archives: Firearms

Firearms Analysis in New Orleans

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Firearm discharge

Cloud of particulates formed at firearm discharge to determine the distance a weapon was fired. Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Last month, Bill Capo of New Orleans’ WWLTV posted a report on changes in that city’s police crime lab since Katrina. When Ronal Serpas assumed the position of crime lab superintendent, he found that the hurricane had destroyed the original lab, leaving a facility that barely functioned.

“This crime lab was basically dead on arrival,” Serpas told Bill Capo. “It was having very little success in doing firearms examinations. There was no real work going on with DNA.”

Serpas initiated a program to rebuild the lab with an emphasis on firearm identification to tackle the increasing number of violent crimes.

“It’s unbelievable the volume of work the firearms unit has done,” said Captain Michael Pfeiffer, the crime lab’s commander. “No place else in the country touches the volume of work this unit does. I can guarantee you, pound for pound, we are faster and better than anybody you want to look at.”

One outcome of the analysis is the finding that in many cases the same guns are used to commit multiple crimes. Investigators use the information to identify links between two or more crimes.

“There’s a small group of people out there committing a majority of the gun violence that occurs in the city of New Orleans,” Pfeiffer told Bill Capo, “and the more we can show the linkages between those people, and between the cases, the more likely we are to take, not just individuals, but groups off the street.”

If you plan to include forensic firearms analysis in your story, then watch the video of this report for insights into a real lab.

 

Tracking Firearms in Toronto

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CBC News report on firearm identification technology.

 

On May 13, CBC News posted an article entitled, “Bullets Decoded: Inside a Toronto Firearm Lab.” As detailed on the CBC News website, Toronto police use the Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS) to analyze three-dimensional marks created on bullets and shell casings upon firing. The technology reveals links among crimes. In one case, for example, the same gun had been fired during two otherwise unrelated shootings and a bank robbery.

Developed by Montreal-based Forensic Technology, IBIS is used by Canadian and US police forces, as well as by other law enforcement agencies throughout the world. According to Robert Walsh, Forensic Technology’s CEO, IBIS has linked guns with more than 100,000 crimes in the United States alone.

IBIS’ success has not gone unnoticed by criminals. “I think the criminals have learned through the court system and word of mouth with each other that IBIS exists and it’s able to link up crimes to other crimes,” Toronto police detective Mike Grierson told CBC News. As a result, criminals sometimes “police their brass,” to avoid leaving evidence at a crime scene.

 

NIBIN

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Case comparison

Photo shows two test-fired cartridge cases from the same firearm compared side-by-side with a comparison microscope. Source: Stephen G. Bunch et al., “Is a Match Really a Match? A Primer on the Procedures and Validity of Firearm and Toolmark Identification,” Forensic Science Communications 11(3) (July 2009).

 

Fourteen years ago the ATF (today, called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) set up the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN). US partners of this network use Integrated Ballistic Identification Systems (IBIS) to obtain digital images of marks on fired cartridge cases and bullets. These cases and bullets are either recovered from a crime scene or from a test firing of a suspect weapon. The images are electronically compared with stored NIBIN entries. On TV shows, an electronic match – a hit – often ends the investigation. In real life, a high-confidence electronic match means that a firearms examiner compares original evidence with a microscope to confirm the match. So far, NIBIN partners have confirmed more than 50,000 NIBIN hits.

Last month, KVOA’s Lupita Murillo in Tucson reported a practical problem with NIBIN analysis. Although an electronic comparison may only require hours, somebody has to acquire and upload digital images into the network. The Tucson Police Crime Lab had 1,200 backlogged cases that needed to be entered into the system.

 

FBI Gun Collection

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Gun collection

FBI Gun Collection. Source: FBI.

 

Earlier this month, the FBI posted a story about the agency’s reference firearms collection. Started in 1933, the collection of 7,000 firearms is stored at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.

FBI Lab firearms examiners use the assembly of weapons to study and test firearms in support of current investigations. The library of handguns and rifles includes a database of typical marks made by the weapons, and more than 15,000 types of commercial and military ammunition. Suppressors, magazines, muzzle attachments, grenade launchers and rocket launchers also reside here.

“Oftentimes this collection is used in active cases in comparing known samples from our collection with question samples from the field,” explained FBI firearms examiner John Webb. “Often, an investigator will receive a part of a firearm or a firearm that isn’t functional. We can take that and compare it with our reference collection, determine what isn’t functioning, and repair it so we can obtain the test fires we need to conduct examinations with bullets and cartridge cases.”