New Ballistic Forensic Resource Established in Frederick County

 Sheriff's Office, ATF Partner in Fighting Violent Crime with Technology

FREDERICK, Md. — The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO), in partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Baltimore Field Division, has been selected by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and ATF as a new site for the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), and became fully operational last week. NIBIN is the only national crime gun ballistic network that allows for the capture and comparison of ballistic evidence to aid in solving and preventing violent crimes involving firearms.

“This was a unique and outstanding opportunity for the Sheriff’s Office to partner with ATF in bringing to Frederick County a technology to identify ballistic evidence that will effectively assist law enforcement in solving gun related crimes and getting criminals and repeat offenders off of our streets,” said Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins. “It’s an evidence processing resource that will provide fast and accurate results in linking shooting incidents not only locally but regionally or across the country. This NIBIN network, located at the Law Enforcement Center, will not only support law enforcement agencies in Frederick County, but will support law enforcement throughout western Maryland.”         

“Identifying, investigating, and incarcerating criminals who use firearms to threaten and damage communities is a mission that ATF and Frederick County Sheriff’s Office have always partnered on, and access to this technology further strengthens that mission,” said ATF Baltimore Field Division Special Agent in Charge Rob Cekada. “NIBIN is a crucial resource for law enforcement, one that grows more effective every day as more and more law enforcement agencies gain access to it. Officers and deputies from all over western Maryland will have timely, important information about related firearm cases to expand their criminal investigations.”

FCSO is now one of six NIBIN sites in Maryland. Their NIBIN site is collaborative and will serve law enforcement from Frederick, Washington, Allegany, and Garrett counties. All of the equipment and the technicians trained on the NIBIN program will be located at the Frederick County Law Enforcement Center, where they will be able to rapidly process the ballistic evidence law enforcement officers from these four counties recover throughout the course of their investigations. Technicians can then quickly provide those same officers with potential leads.

The NIBIN program was established by ATF in 1999 and provides investigators with the ability to compare their ballistics evidence against evidence from other violent crimes on a local, regional and national level, generating investigative links that would rarely be revealed absent the technology. That ballistic evidence is solely of the evidence left behind from firearms and does not capture or store information about individual firearms or their owners.

When a gun is fired, it leaves unique markings on the cartridge casings and the NIBIN program takes a 3-D image of that ballistic evidence to identify possible matches in casings previously recovered by law enforcement, often at the scene of violent crimes. If a match is found, that means the same gun was used and that connection allows law enforcement to expand their investigations and link shooting incidents that may have appeared random at first or may have crossed state lines and jurisdictions.

FCSO and ATF are committed to keeping communities all across Maryland safe. The intelligence information that NIBIN will provide is another step forward in securing that safety, and allowing law enforcement at every level to work together to strategically address trends in violent crime.