GREELEY, Colo. — Greeley’s police department is currently using technology that allows them to track guns used in crimes faster than ever.
The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), part of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), is bringing its powerful crime-fighting capabilities to the Greeley Police Department for 90 days this summer.
The mobile NIBIN van uses advanced 3D imaging technology to scan evidence like bullet casings found at crime scenes and connect that evidence to unsolved crimes. Examiners can look at the casing and see if it matches other casings that have been entered into the system previously. Evidence is also stored in their national database to help solve future crimes.
"It is a game changer, it helps us solve crimes faster, it also gives us opportunity to connect crimes that we didn't think were connected," Brent Beavers, the special agent in charge for the ATF Denver Field Division, said.
"As a special agent in charge for the Denver field division, I'm not trying to give the van up, so I want to try to keep it here as long as I can," Beavers said.
Nathan Johnson is the ATF Denver Crime Gun Intelligence Center supervisor. Johnson demonstrated for Denver7 the seemingly quick and easy process of scanning a piece of evidence in the NIBIN van.
After properly labeling and categorizing the evidence, it is ready to be scanned in the powerful BRASSTRAX system.
"BRASSTRAX is a really fine tuned 3D imaging system, essentially it's a 3D image camera, and takes images under different lighting and different detail. It's like a very large law enforcement digital camera, but for gun evidence," Johnson said.
"Once these images are taken and we synchronize it to the system, it goes up into the system, and then the system produces a list of possible matches at that point. Once it's done that, a trained and NIBIN technician will take a look at the images that the system produced, and it puts a human eyes on it. This would confirm that we do have connected events, and then we have a lead. At that point, that lead is pushed out into the field and the investigative work continue," Johnson explained.
"Before, it would be a matter of our detectives or our personnel checking out the evidence, driving it to a regional machine, entering it, waiting for results, coming back, and putting it back in," Greeley Police Chief Adam Turk said.
With the NIBIN van being in-house at Greeley PD, officers are saving a remarkable amount of time helping them to track weapons faster and get criminals off the streets sooner.
"I was just informed today by our technicians that we are all caught up on our entry of casings. The ultimate goal is to educate and get more agencies involved so that we can increase the number of casings we're putting into the system," Chief Turk said.