Ohio law enforcement agencies are taking advantage of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation’s expanded system of NIBIN stations for entering crime gun evidence into the nation’s digital ballistics database.
Earlier this year, BCI installed a total of five NIBIN stations at three of its crime laboratories across the state. Labs in Bowling Green, London and Richfield now have two each. Previously, only Richfield had a NIBIN station.
NIBIN is shorthand for the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, operated by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). NIBIN stations make 3D scans of cartridge cases found at crime scenes or produced from the test-firing of recovered crime guns.
The markings on those digital images are automatically compared to markings on millions of other cartridge case images in the database, resulting in a list of possible matches and possible connections to other gun crimes in Ohio and across the country.
Jennifer Duvall, who manages the Comparative Sciences Laboratory at BCI, said 92 law enforcement agencies that had never previously submitted ballistics evidence to NIBIN through BCI have done so this year.
From January through July, BCI entered 2,338 cartridge cases into NIBIN from all the law enforcement agencies that submitted evidence, an average of 334 entries per month. Over that same span, NIBIN generated 443 leads as a result of correlation analysis — 99 in July alone. The information was then reported back to the originating agency to follow up.
A NIBIN lead is an unconfirmed, potential association between two or more cartridge cases in the database; it is based on a correlation review by trained NIBIN technicians. A NIBIN hit occurs when two or more cartridge cases are identified as a match after a microscopic comparison by a firearms examiner.
BCI’s labs are directly linked to the ATF’s NIBIN National Correlation and Training Center (NNCTC) in Alabama, so cartridge cases collected from crime scenes can be sent through NIBIN to the center and analyzed within hours.
If needed, BCI’s Criminal Intelligence Unit can help law enforcement agencies develop any NIBIN leads they receive.
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NIBIN training videos
BCI and the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy have produced a series of general training videos on NIBIN. The videos are available through the OPOTA Online portal, under the “Roll Call Refreshers” catalog, at
https://opota.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov.
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BCI now offering training on entering evidence into NIBIN
A NIBIN technician at BCI’s Richfield lab recently completed instruction through the ATF that certifies him as a NIBIN authorized trainer, allowing him to train law enforcement officers, other techs and scientists to conduct NIBIN triage and acquisition.
Triage is done to determine which cartridge case (from a group of cartridge cases) should be digitally scanned into the NIBIN database — a process known as acquisition.