Law Enforcement receive ballistics equipment, aims to connect criminals to weapon

BONNERS FERRY — Boundary County Sheriff’s Office received a Project Safe Neighborhood grant through the University of Idaho. The grant award will allow the Sheriff’s Office to test fire weapons that may have been involved in a crime.

This new device will allow law enforcement to gather ballistic information to help identify weapons utilized in the crime.

A forensic ballistic bullet trap was obtained to allow a portable system that can be used to fire the weapons into and gather the fired cartridge case. The trap is engineered to absorb a bullet’s energy while the bullet and fired casing integrity remain intact.

The Sheriff’s Office will also test fire weapons from other local law enforcement agencies at their request if they meet the criteria the weapon has been suspected of being used in a crime. Only firearms involved in a crime or that have come into the possession of a law enforcement agency will be tested and submitted.

Once test-fired, the cartridge case is secured as evidence and submitted to the Idaho State Police, where it can be analyzed to determine if the weapon had been used in any crimes.

The Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS), National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) stores, correlates, compares and retrieves digital images of fired cartridge cases.

Cartridge cases from a crime scene or test-fired cartridge cases from a recovered firearm are submitted to this database for possible matching. Every gun leaves distinctive marks on a fired cartridge case upon firing, like fingerprints.

The Sheriff’s Office feels that one of the best ways to protect lawful firearms owners’ rights is to hold those who commit crimes with firearms responsible for their actions. This will help connect firearms used in crimes, to the crime.

Bonner County Sheriff’s Department also received a Project Safe Neighborhood grant, and according to their Detective Stella,

“We were approved for the Project Safe Neighborhoods Grant also. However, it would be very safe to say that without the NIBIN system, a Bonner County murder case would still be unsolved and a murderer still loose in North Idaho”.

According to Boundary County Sheriff’s Detective Dave McClelland, this will be a useful tool and program to identify or eliminate guns that have been used in a crime. The Sheriff’s Office is a strong supporter of the second amendment, but we want to hold the criminals responsible when choosing to use a firearm in a crime.

Sheriff’s Reserve Deputy Mike Kelley retired to Boundary County after a career with law enforcement agencies, civilians, and the military. He specialized in firearms ballistic identification and crimes with firearms. With his military role, he established a crime lab in Iraq and obtained equipment for his lab to do the ballistic testing under a sniper defeat program.

During the first two months of having this ballistic testing equipment (IBIS), Kelley matched evidence to an enemy sniper rifle.

He said that getting the crime lab established and having the proper equipment to capture and compare ballistic evidence was an asset to the military in Iraq in combatting sniper attacks against United States soldiers.

Kelley was also involved in Afghanistan in a follow-up investigation following the death of U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman, who had left a career with the NFL to serve our Country.

Tillman was killed in 2004 in Spera Khost Province, Afghanistan. There was conflicting information on whether he had been killed by enemy fire or friendly fire. Kelley determined that it was friendly fire that led to Tillman’s fatality.

Systems such as the Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS)/ National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) join other systems like Automated fingerprint identification (AFIS) and Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) to help law enforcement agencies connect people to crimes and help solve current and cold cases.