OFF THE WIRE
MILWAUKEE -- Gun violence is a big problem in Milwaukee. But now police have the latest technology to help them catch criminals.
It's all about being in the right place at the right time. Police are using real time technology to do that and they showed TODAY’STMJ4 Reporter Charles Benson how it works.
Every time a gun is fired the bullet casing leaves a clue, a clue as obvious as a fingerprint.
Benson: So if I fire 10 times from the same gun each of those casings will look identical?
Officer McNeil: Yes, I try to explain it to people by using the fingerprint. It's literally just as accurate as a fingerprint
Officer Malcolm McNeil uses a new computer system called NIBIN to find the marks or fingerprints on a bullet shell when a gun is fired. No two guns are alike.
"It's exciting work,” said Officer McNeil. “It's something seen as being cutting edge.”
And it cuts down on valuable time. McNeil can trace a shell casing from a crime scene to a gun within hours instead of weeks or months.
That helps police track the gun back to its owner. That’s science and speed critical to cops on the street.
“The power of NIBIN is we're able to say within a scientific certainty that these events are connected,” said Captain David Salazar.
Captain Salazar walked us through a real life scenario where police recently used NIBIN to connect a gun to 9 armed robberies and shootings in Milwaukee.
Information collected and processed from the bullet casings quickly connected the crimes and created a pattern that police could follow - giving them valuable time and information to make an arrest.
Benson: By this point you are now positioning your team- your officers to where the suspects are going to be next?
Captain Salazar: That's the power of NIBIN you are able to laser focus your people and arm them with the most accurate intelligence to make the best opportunity.
In this case it worked. Police say they were in position when the suspects struck again. Three people were arrested and recovered a gun.
The ATF in Milwaukee partnered with police and secured the $300,000 for the newest version of the NIBIN system. Assistant Agent Jeffery Magee is with the ATF in Milwaukee.
Benson: In less than a year that this has been up and running, how successful has it been?
Agent Magee: Very successful.
In March police ID nearly 200 shell casings and 43 were linked to one or more crimes. That's more than double the national average - meaning police and ATF have their work cut out for them.
“There's a lot of gun crimes recovered and we wanted to focus and bring this technology here to be forward thinking,” said Magee.
This type of technology has been around for more than ten years but Milwaukee Police have the newest version. In fact, Milwaukee is only one of three cities in the country that has it.
http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/Tracking-Bullets-256692211.html
