ATF Mobile Ballistics Unit Helps Wheeling Police With Unsolved Cases
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WHEELING -- The Wheeling Police Department welcomed some visitors this week that can help local law enforcement get closer to cracking unsolved criminal cases.
WPD served as the host site for the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) Mobile Unit this week. The unit helps area law enforcement agencies link unsolved crimes through ballistic evidence.
The NIBIN Mobile Unit, through the U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, is being dispatched throughout various areas of the state of West Virginia to help police departments work on case backlogs. Together, NIBIN and law enforcement agencies work to connect criminally seized weapons with shell casings found at crime scenes, hoping to make a connection and help ongoing gun-related investigations progress.
The mobile unit takes 3-D and 4-D imaging of ballistic evidence. With those images, they hope to identify a possible match to evidence from other crime scenes across the country involving a firearm.
The unit has been parked in front of the police department's soon-to-be new headquarters in Center Wheeling.
Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger said WPD is honored to host the mobile NIBIN unit this week. He said it allowed the department and other neighboring law enforcement agencies to submit ballistic evidence and learn more about the technology.
"We've already had leads come from our submissions that we just entered in the last week," Schwertfeger explained, while talking about the advanced technology in the mobile unit.
"The Wheeling Police fully recognizes the importance of relationships like the one we have with ATF," said Schwertfeger. "WPD also understands the importance of tracing and submissions of firearms and ballistic evidence to be analyzed and entered in NIBIN and have been making those submissions for years. This Mobile Unit can assist us and other local agencies throughout the region to hopefully link those violent crimes and offenders that cross jurisdictional boundaries."
ATF Special Agent in Charge R. Shawn Morrow of the Louisville Division said the success of NIBIN relies heavily on the outstanding partnerships between ATF and the West Virginia law enforcement community.
"ATF's crime gun intelligence, including the NIBIN Mobile Unit, assists this partnership by identifying shooters, across jurisdictions, before they can reoffend," he said. "Together, we are using this technology to assist in combating violent crime and promoting public safety in Wheeling and the surrounding communities. ATF is thankful for these partnerships."
ATF Special Agent Matt Bassett, who has been on site with the mobile unit in Wheeling this week, said the ultimate goal of the program is, "to fight violent crime."
"By rapidly entering cartridge casings from crime guns and from crime scenes we hope to more quickly identify shooters and take investigative action and get them off the streets and in doing so drive down violence in communities," Bassett explained. "The NIBIN van is a visible representation of our commitment to working with departments like Wheeling and communities like Wheeling to help address violent crimes in communities."
As part of the mobile unit technology, a weapon in question is first test-fired inside a bullet trap inside the mobile unit. The shell casing is then collected and analyzed by the NIBIN Mobile Unit, which takes 3D and 4D imaging for ballistic evidence. The NIBIN technology compares images of the submitted ballistic evidence from shooting scenes and recovered firearms and produces a list of possible similar results.
Trained NIBIN technicians then conduct a correlation review of these results, identifying NIBIN leads or potential links or associations from the same firearm.
The specific law enforcement agencies then are informed of the results to help them with their ongoing investigations.