What to Know
- On Wednesday, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, Chester County District Attorney Deborah Ryan, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer and Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub announced the acquisition of an ATF National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) machine.
- The NIBIN machine was acquired by Montgomery County and will be used in all four suburban Philadelphia counties. NIBIN is a network database of fired cartridge casings from guns used in crimes across the country.
- Fired cartridge casings recovered from the scenes of violent crimes as well as fired cartridge casings obtained from seized firearms that are test fired will be transported to the Montgomery County Detective Bureau’s forensic lab within 48 hours before being inputted into NIBIN. The results will then be sent back to the county where the casings were initially found for detectives to review and follow up.
District attorneys in four counties in the Philadelphia suburbs announced a “game-changing” network database that will help them fight gun violence.
On Wednesday, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, Chester County District Attorney Deborah Ryan, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer and Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub announced the acquisition of an ATF National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) machine.
The NIBIN machine was acquired by Montgomery County and will be used in all four suburban Philadelphia counties. NIBIN is a network database of fired cartridge casings from guns used in crimes across the country.
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When a gun is fired it leaves its own signature on bullet casings, a unique set of scratches, grooves and dents, officials say. The NIBIN system can quickly compare the individual bullet casing “fingerprints” against its database of six million fired cartridge casings and create a list of high-probability matches. The matches are then confirmed by a firearms examiner before being used as leads for investigators to use. Detectives can then analyze the NIBIN leads and evidence to determine the connections and suspects in the cases they investigate.
Fired cartridge casings recovered from the scenes of violent crimes as well as fired cartridge casings obtained from seized firearms that are test fired will be transported to the Montgomery County Detective Bureau’s forensic lab within 48 hours before being inputted into NIBIN. The results will then be sent back to the county where the casings were initially found for detectives to review and follow up.
District Attorney Steele called the NIBIN system a “game-changer” in fighting gun crimes and gun violence.
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“With this NIBIN portal, Montgomery County and the surrounding counties are in position to be able to quickly respond to gun crimes that are linked together in a timely manner and disrupt the shooting cycle by these trigger pullers,” he said. “We in Montgomery, Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties have not been immune to regional gun crimes and gun violence spilling over into our counties and all of us, along with our federal partners, are committed to responding vigorously and stopping this gun violence that threatens the safety of our communities.”
The NIBIN machine was funded by the Liberty Mid-Atlantic High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), a federal program that fosters initiatives and inter-agency cooperation to help stop drug trafficking in the Delaware Valley.
“The Liberty Mid-Atlantic HIDTA is proud to make investments in technologies for our region’s local, state and federal law enforcement agencies that enhance their capabilities to thwart the illegal firearms trade, drug trafficking and the violence that so often comes with both,” HIDTA’s Brian Michael said. “We are confident that the acquisition of the NIBIN system for this multi-county collaboration will succeed in accelerating investigative successes when gunfire breaks out and will lead to safer communities in Philadelphia and its suburbs.”
The NIBIN program was launched in 1997 by the ATF. There are currently 293 systems in the country, including two at the Philadelphia Police Department and in Berks County.
“NIBIN sites help to combat violent crime, promote public and officer safety, and identify/target shooters before they can re-offend. Since ATF launched this national program in 1997, the NIBIN system has identified more than 722,000 NIBIN leads in the ongoing efforts to find serial shooters and stop the shooting cycle,” ATF Philadelphia Field Division Special Agent in Charge Eric DeGree said. “Thanks to the Liberty Mid-Atlantic HIDTA, investigators in four counties will be able to utilize a new NIBIN site housed in Montgomery County.”
In addition to acquiring the NIBIN machine, Montgomery County also created a new Gun Violence Reduction Task Force made up of more than 100 detectives and police officers. The Task Force members, who were sworn in and trained on Wednesday, will work with the Montgomery County Detective Bureau’s Violent Crimes Unit to investigate gun trafficking organizations and gun crimes throughout the country.
“We are working at being at the forefront of investigating and prosecuting gun trafficking in the region, and we’ve obtained some significant sentences in our county for these crimes that are an extreme threat to the safety of our communities,” DA Steele said. “Now we have at our disposal cutting-edge technology in NIBIN and more law enforcement boots on the ground to take it to the next level in fighting gun crimes. This is just the next big step—but not the last—in our overall goal to make communities in Montgomery County and surrounding counties safer.”
