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TO: Mayor Richard C. Irvin
FROM: Commander Jack Fichtel
DATE: September 5, 2019
SUBJECT:
Resolution authorizing the City of Aurora to enter into an updated Memorandum of Understanding between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the Aurora Police Department (APD).
PURPOSE:
An updated Memorandum of Understanding between the ATF and APD will allow for a continued Regional NIBIN Initiative.
BACKGROUND:
The Aurora Police Department since 2006 has housed and ATF-APD Fox Valley Gang Crimes Task Force, which has been a highly successful partnership combatting violent, gang and gun crimes. Through this partnership, the ATF has identified the Aurora Police Department, and surrounding jurisdictions, as a location that would benefit from NIBIN technology. NIBIN, which stands for the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network, is a tool to help law enforcement to establish investigative leads from ballistic evidence.
To understand NIBIN it is important to understand how it works. When a gun is made, the manufacturing equipment etches microscopic markings - somewhat like fingerprints - onto the gun's metal parts. These markings, called tool marks, are transferred to a bullet or cartridge case when the gun is fired.
When law enforcement investigates crimes in which firearms are used, ballistic imaging of such bullets and cartridge cases can be important in solving crime.
NIBIN is a national database of digital images of spent bullets and cartridge cases that were found at crime scenes or test-fired from confiscated weapons. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) manages the system and provides the equipment to crime labs around the country.
A firearms examiner uses ballistic imaging to convert the spent rounds into two- or three-dimensional digital images that are uploaded into NIBIN. NIBIN can be searched for possible matches - that is, other rounds that have similar tool marks and thus may have...
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