Success of Phoenix PD's NIBIN Program Justifies Expansion

When I’m wrong I’m the first to admit it. Apparently Phoenix PD has actu­ally had some suc­cess­ful con­vic­tions based on NIBIN hits. I was well aware Phoenix PD has had a very suc­cess­ful NIBIN pro­gram. They have rou­tine hits with var­i­ous agen­cies around the met­ro­pol­i­tan area. ]

The first cas­ing I entered into NIBIN for Chandler PD resulted in a hit with a Phoenix PD case. I had a con­tract posi­tion with Phoenix PD for roughly a year per­form­ing NIBIN hit con­fir­ma­tions with com­par­i­son micro­scopes, so I know they pro­gram has really taken off in the last 5 — 7 years.

It only makes sense to try and draw in more agen­cies into the pro­gram, to help make it more effec­tive for all agen­cies in the valley.

A fed­eral firearms-identification data­base used to solve Phoenix mur­ders could soon be expanded to other Valley cities if detec­tives are approved for a grant.

The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network data­base, which cat­a­logues weapons and helps inves­ti­ga­tors link evi­dence from mul­ti­ple crime scenes, is touted as key tech­nol­ogy in a major met­ro­pol­i­tan area. Shootings in Phoenix spill into other com­mu­ni­ties and vice versa.

Phoenix police enter more than 7,000 firearms into the NIBIN sys­tem each year. Crime scene inves­ti­ga­tors enter the evi­dence as quickly as days or up to a week after a crime occurs, enabling detec­tives to use 3-D imag­ing and other tech­nol­ogy to com­pare spent shell cas­ings with evi­dence in the sys­tem, which spans the country.

Each gun leaves unique mark­ings on ammu­ni­tion based on dif­fer­ent fir­ing mechanisms.

Striations on the expended bul­lets matched with images in the data­base can help inves­ti­ga­tors place sus­pects at more than one crime scene. The NIBIN data­base pro­vides them with pre­ci­sion they wouldn’t have with the naked eye.

“It can help link crime scenes that wouldn’t have oth­er­wise been linked together,” said Sgt. Brandon Huntley, a gun squad super­vi­sor who over­sees the NIBIN pro­gram at the Phoenix Police Department.

“Firearms leave mark­ings on the shell cas­ings that are sim­i­lar to fin­ger­prints or DNA,” Huntley said.

Charges in 2 murders

A man arrested ear­lier this month will face charges in two unsolved Valley mur­ders after detec­tives matched shell cas­ings from both scenes to the same gun through a national bal­lis­tics data­base, Phoenix police said.

The bod­ies of both 2006 mur­der vic­tims were dis­cov­ered about one week apart in areas off Interstate 17 north of Phoenix. Detectives recently matched evi­dence recov­ered at one crime scene by Phoenix police with evi­dence col­lected by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in the other case.

Saul Ojeda, 29, was arrested in Santa Cruz County on sus­pi­cion of the mur­ders of Basilio Guerrero-Monroy, 32, and Gilbert Ortiz, 26. Detectives said the vic­tims were kid­napped, bound and held for ran­som at a home in cen­tral Phoenix before they were slain and dumped in the desert.

‘Hits’ in the NIBIN database

Earlier this year, Phoenix police watched as four sus­pects received sen­tences up to life in prison for their roles in series of crimes in Phoenix and Mesa that inves­ti­ga­tors linked through “hits” in the NIBIN database.

The cases con­cluded with hit No. 100 that stemmed from a 2006 Ahwatukee home inva­sion in which an elderly cou­ple were robbed one day before a homi­cide 3 miles away. Investigators linked evi­dence in that case with other evi­dence from a Mesa drive-by shoot­ing in 2006.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety and the Mesa Police Department are among the agen­cies that also use the NIBIN database.

Huntley said he applied for a grant with the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission to pro­vide train­ing to 16 addi­tional Valley agencies.

The idea is to allow Phoenix detec­tives to host inves­ti­ga­tors from other agen­cies to cover a wider area based on con­cerns about regional crime.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwatukee/articles/2010/05/10/20100510phoenix-gun-crime-database.\

While there are some fac­tual errors with the above arti­cle, they aren’t worth going into, as it would give valu­able infor­ma­tion regard­ing poten­tial weak­nesses of the NIBIN program.

Read more on AZCentral.com.