How to use data integration and analytics software for smarter gun crime investigations

Christopher Crowell is a customer advocate at Peregrine.

KEY IDEAS:

• Gun crime intelligence units treat every firearm and fired cartridge as actionable evidence, not just forensic artifacts.
• Programs like NIBIN and CGIC enable rapid ballistic correlations to help investigators link crimes and identify offenders.
• eTrace and firearm tracing add critical ownership and trafficking context to ballistic intelligence.
• Data integration platforms like Peregrine unify ballistic, RMS, CAD, and public data to accelerate investigations.
• Intelligence-led workflows can reduce investigative delays, improve officer safety, and increase gun crime clearance rates.

Law enforcement agencies everywhere are tasked with investigating and solving a multitude of crimes, but as public safety leaders have prioritized the mitigation of gun crimes in recent years, agencies across the United States are enlisting help from various sources with preventing and reducing gun crimes. More and more agencies are standing up investigative groups or task forces dedicated to addressing the steep increase of firearm-related crimes outside traditional investigative units.

The primary focus of these task forces is to take a presumptive approach to gun crimes, using the philosophy that every gun has investigative value. This value comes from forensics, identifiable tool marks, ballistics, and law enforcement database queries. These categories work in concert with each other to form the basis of giving investigative personnel a comprehensive overview of every firearm and fired cartridge recovered from a crime scene and used in ongoing criminal activity.

This approach — coupled with the expansion of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) and Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC) programs — will enhance every investigative unit’s ability to solve a gun-related crime. It will also allow investigators in gun crimes units to identify and target offenders who arm themselves to commit crimes and create fear.

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Lessons learned: Building an effective gun crime intelligence program

The current iteration of NIBIN is based on a series of prescribed tasks that encompass a comprehensive plan of action to identify and resolve gun crimes formally. Any agency willing to abide by the specified tasks proves its seriousness and commitment to finding the best possible solutions to solving gun crimes while empowering their investigative staff by giving them additional information to make good decisions based on actionable intelligence.

During my time in law enforcement, I toured multiple gun crime sites to implement the best possible practices and policies related to firearms processing and investigative follow-up. We partnered with ATF, assisted in creating a multi-agency task force, and regionalized our gun crime ballistic program. I traveled the country meeting with various Gun Crime Investigation Center personnel, bringing back the policies and procedures that worked the best and incorporating them into our procedures over time.

Task investigators with ballistic matching

It started with removing the ballistic matching program from the laboratory and putting it into the hands of investigative staff. Our stakeholders agreed that our NIBIN partnership could be strengthened by repurposing a tool that offered exceptional value for the investigative team while not compromising the ability of the firearms examiners to review leads needed for confirmation. We later moved to ATF’s NIBIN National Correlation and Training Center, which helped increase acquisition returns within 24–48 hours and allowed personnel to focus on other important tasks. This was the foundation used to regionalize the program for surrounding jurisdictions.

To further increase the crime fighting ability and intelligence gathering needed to mitigate gun crimes, we established a protocol to allow investigators assigned to the gun crimes unit to process firearms not designated for laboratory forensics. These checks included latent prints, swabs for DNA, and function tests (test fire) for a ballistic matching entry. The issuing county attorney’s office also approved this protocol, so there were no surprises when the case went to court.

Conduct forensics on all recovered firearms

We then required every detective to make a forensic decision on firearms contained within their cases. Before that, items in evidence would sit and wait for action. Too often, recovered items like fired cartridges or firearms would not be processed until much later. When this occurred, actionable intelligence was lost. Under this new protocol, the gun crimes unit would process everything unless specially requested not to. We also mandated the collection of every recovered fired cartridge from the field for ballistic processing and eventually worked out the delivery of recovered fired cartridges several times a week from the evidence section, straight to the gun crimes ballistic matching processing facility.

A holistic approach to solving gun crimes was born through these processes, and the internal paradigm shifted.

📚 GLOSSARY OF TERMS:

• NIBIN: National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, an ATF-managed federal database that stores digital images of bullets and cartridge cases to aid in gun crime investigations
• CGIC: Gun Crime Intelligence Center, a multi-agency effort that uses NIBIN data and other tech-based strategies to analyze gun crime evidence
• eTrace: A web-based application for firearms tracing and analysis to help identify potential traffickers, suspects, and gun crime patterns to assist with investigations
• Ballistics intelligence: The immediate forensic analysis of firearm evidence using databases such as NIBIN and other tech tools
• Gun crime intelligence unit: A multi-agency law enforcement team that specializes in crimes involving firearms, usually using data and technology to link guns to crimes, identify suspects, and prevent future gun violence

How technology can improve gun crime investigations

The mission of any gun-specific investigative group is to suppress and prevent firearms-related crime through effective enforcement of federal and state firearms laws. In partnership with ATF, this philosophy is dedicated to investigating prohibited firearms possessors, armed criminals, illegal firearms trafficking, violent organizations that misuse firearms, illegal FFLs, and the widespread use of ballistic matching technology for every gun-related crime.

Ballistic intelligence is paramount; however, it is not the only meaningful tool. Comprehensive tracing via eTrace of all firearms recovered is a must as well. Finding information on the first purchaser or the last person in possession helps leverage the ballistic knowledge and increase case solvability.

Now add a layered approach with a data integration and sharing solution that allows different agencies to read and share records management system (RMS) reports. You have a comprehensive process and greater scope of impact. Some data integration applications, like Peregrine, can pull data from any disparate law enforcement system into one platform for use in conjunction with any investigation.

Law enforcement must actively seek out technology that expands their toolset and provides the confidence for use in every case.

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How Peregrine integrates ballistic, RMS, and public data for gun crime investigations

It’s not efficient to manually search through thousands of lines of printed data to identify commonalities and relationships, and then collate that data into valuable and actionable information. Software is better suited to perform this type of detailed analysis and comparison. What would take an investigator several hours to conduct can be processed in seconds with a data integration solution like Peregrine.

Automated analytics should also improve the accuracy of the information and uncover relationships between data points that might not be identifiable by a human operator, thus improving every aspect of the investigative process, increasing efficiencies, supporting officer safety, and reducing crime.

Moreover, accessing cross-jurisdictional RMS reports and CAD data is a force multiplier for any law enforcement agency. Having the names, addresses, phone numbers, and historical information stored in partner agencies’ information systems allows for a deeper understanding of how the puzzle pieces fit together in an investigation. Data is no longer siloed or out of reach from surrounding jurisdictions. Peregrine offers any law enforcement agency the ability to access critical investigations information immediately by integrating and exposing siloed data across participating partner agencies.

🧳 CASE STUDY: RICHMOND POLICE DEPARTMENT

The Richmond Police Department in California used Peregrine to identify a suspect who had been involved in multiple shootings across various jurisdictions. Because the Richmond PD shares data with partner agencies in Peregrine, detectives were able to use NIBIN ballistics data and case reports in Peregrine to instantly link a local shooting to a different shooting in a partner agency’s jurisdiction.

A quick search in Peregrine revealed that the shell casings recovered from both shootings matched (NIBIN data), and witnesses of both shootings seemed to describe the same suspect (case reports). With another search, Richmond detectives linked the suspect vehicle from their shooting case with the suspect shooter in their partner agency’s case.

Officers later obtained a warrant, confirmed the suspect’s involvement in the Richmond shooting, and determined that the suspect illegally possessed firearms.

Scenario: Applying Peregrine in gun crime investigations

Imagine the following series of events unfolding in real time at your agency, aided by Peregrine:

Finding leads in an officer-involved shooting

One of your officers gets into an officer-involved shooting. You learn the suspect was a felon and should not have been in possession of a firearm.

Through ballistic matching, your investigators find that the suspect’s fired cartridges are linked to another recent investigation. They run the recovered serial number through a trace as an urgent priority and discover that it was initially associated with a local gun shop. They then obtain the original purchase form from ATF to identify the buyer of the firearm. They knock on that person’s door only to discover that the gun was sold in a private sale to someone else.

Tracing the suspect weapon

Investigators search the second buyer’s name in Peregrine and start working through data from RMS reports and public records, where they find the individual’s most recent address and phone number. They also find one case report indicating that the new lead was previously stopped and found to have had ammunition on their person.

Investigators call the RMS-sourced phone number and in doing so determine that the recent address is still correct. They also discover a driver’s license photo of the buyer and cross-reference that with open source mugshot data from the state department of corrections to confirm the individual’s identity. After a short surveillance operation, they locate and interview the purchaser.

Tracking down the suspect

Investigators determine that the gun’s purchaser, also a felon, bought the suspect firearm and gave it to a family member, who then used it against the police in a shooting. Using additional RMS reports, the investigators learn that narcotics are also associated with the person of interest. They then obtain a search warrant and recover additional weapons, money, and firearms from the buyer.

Pressing charges

Investigative staff can now charge the purchaser with illegal possession of firearms, illegal purchase of a weapon, and other felony offenses, including facilitation to the original offense. Peregrine centralizes forensic ballistic information, the gun trace form, the RMS reports documenting the buyer’s history of felony offenses, the search warrant, and the state prison mugshot in one place.

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Streamline investigative workflows with Peregrine

A strategic tool for any gun crime prevention program, Peregrine allows investigators to combine ballistic leads from disparate sources on a single collective platform that automates map visualizations while researching RMS reports or querying public records or other vital data sources. Peregrine provides the data needed to make decisions that matter. To learn more about how Peregrine can support investigations for your agency’s gun crimes unit, contact our team today.