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Eficiency of Automated Ballistic Identification Systems

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michaelds:
Thank you very much to all to you for your replys and please keep sending comments, all information I consider crucial to get to a logical and fair result and as more detailed it is so better.
The expression saying "solved" may be interpreted as geting positive results which resulted in a convinction. Sorry about the mislead.
Iam using another Identificationsystem and Iam just being curios about myth and truths about whats going on in the community.

Stojan Kostic:
Hello,

I was just curious. Which system you currently use in your daily work?

michaelds:
We use the Evofinder system, the results are impressive, the german federal police is using it as well the swiss police with success. However with our crime rate here it comes more closer to US crime problems related to firearms (in fact our problems are much worser, I guess)

Mike Sandford:
This is all merely semantics.  Surely IBIS/NIBIN does not solve crimes.  It takes an investigator to solve the crime.  Even if the investigators are handed the case breaking lead on a silver platter.  Those investigators, the ones charged with the task of solving that case, rightfully get the credit for a job well done.

Now I submit this:

A Police Officer is shot several times, including in the face, during an apparent "road rage" incident on his way to work.  He was out of uniform and in his personal vehicle.  The only witness to the crime is the victim/police officer.  A multi-agency task force is launched to investigate the crime.  This same night, firearms examiners from one of NJ's busiest labs were called into service and very late that night evidence from the scene was entered into IBIS.  The correlation results were negative.

A Month goes by with little headway as the victim was shot in the face and due to his injuries he was unable to assist the task force with workable information.  The nature of the incident being road rage indicated that this crime was random in nature with no known connection between the victim and his assailant.

Two weeks after the incident a little publicized and low profile "criminal mischief" incident occurs in the next county.  A drunk man outside a strip club was arrested shooting at a liquor store.  There was no attempted burglary, no robbery, the victim was a cinder block wall.  By all accounts this was an inchoate crime, the official charge, "Unlawful Possession of a Firearm".

I recall the investigator's comment when he submitted the evidence.  "No rush, it's just a possession job and the guys sitting in the county 'cause he can't make bail."  With backlogs and case loads being what they are, test shots were entered into IBIS three weeks after submission.  It had now been nearly six weeks since the Police Officer was shot.

I'm sure by now you can figure out the end result.  I am quite sure that had it not been for IBIS/NIBIN the odds that this gun would have been connected to the attempted murder of that police officer anytime soon were astronomically low.  The IBIS System worked exactly the way it was designed and I can clearly say, "IBIS broke the case".

The defendant has been charged with attempted murder.  Subsequently he has been committed to a psychiatric hospital which has postponed his trial.  The officers who made the "Unlawful Possession" arrest, myself, and my partner, all received awards for a job well done.  Truely the highlight of my career was shaking the hand of that officer as he said thank you.  Thanks for the initial efforts of the Firearms Examiners from Newark Police, (Sgt. Luke Laterza, Det. Frank Feretra, Det. Antonio Badine), the guys who started the IBIS ball rolling.

Now I ask, did IBIS solve the crime?  I say YES.

Bill Wheatley:
@ Mike  :-00 Like  :-00

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