CHARLESTON, W.Va. — More technology has been added to the force of the Charleston Police Department when it comes to investigating gun-related crimes in the city.
Officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), City of Charleston, Charleston PD (CPD), and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia’s office gathered Wednesday at City Hall to announce the use of the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN).
NIBIN, which the department has already put to use and is stationed at many departments nationwide, is an on-site computer system that issued to analyze shell casings.
“It’s a fingerprint of shell casings that link crimes across districts,” U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart said at the presser. “What is so important about that is the Detroit drug dealers that come down here and cause chaos on our streets, we are now going to be able to understand and link those crimes together.”
The computer system captures digital pictures of ballistic evidence and sees if there is a match in the system to another crime that features shell casings or a firearm, according to a release. A gun leaves unique microscopic markings on fired bullet casings, like fingerprints.
Charleston Police Chief Opie Smith said his department has used NIBIN for around three months and it has already been a large help.
He said CPD has already gotten multiple matches that have helped investigators in homicide, malicious wounding, wanton endangerment or shots fired cases.
“It takes the pictures but it sends them to Huntsville, Alabama where the experts review it,” Smith said. “They may get 200 possibilities of a match then they start eliminating. They get a physical look at the shell casings and see if it could be a match because of something or not a match. They narrow it down where it becomes a process.”
Smith added that certified detectives can use the computer system and be assigned to cases where shell casings and/or firearms are evidence.
He opens the use of the machine, which sits in the department’s criminal investigation division, to all community departments in the area.
Stuart L. Lowery, Special Agent in Charge, ATF Louisville, spoke about the importance and success of NIBIN nationwide. West Virginia now joins most of the nation with this technology.
ATF provided the system with no cost to the city in the first three years of use. According to a release, the CPD will budget for funds to provide maintenance of the computer and software beginning in the fourth year of the partnership.
Stuart called Wednesday’s announcement a great day for law enforcement but a bad day for criminals all over the state.