ATF mobile ballistics testing van dispatched to Houston

HOUSTON (AP) - Gunmen shoot Houstonians hundreds of times every year during robberies, assaults and murders. When they flee, suspects leave a trail of carnage - and often, the shell casings from the bullets they fired.

The Houston Chronicle reports it is crucial evidence investigators can use to link the carnage back to the firearm used in the crime. Forensic technicians take high-resolution photographs of bullet casings found at crime scenes and upload them to a national database called the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), which then matches the images with those of casings of bullets collected at other crime scenes.

In years past, investigators waited weeks, or even months, for lab results. In Houston, however, investigators will now be able to image and link bullets in just a few hours, following the deployment Thursday by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' of the agency's mobile ballistics testing van.

"The NIBIN van allows us to get leads back a little bit closer to real time," said Fred Milanowski, special agent in charge of the ATF's Houston Field Division. "We can . get emergency correlations back in as little as three hours."

The van is the latest move by the ATF to investigate gun crime in Houston more quickly, and part of a broader national effort by the agency to persuade local law enforcement agencies to use the NIBIN database as a tool to solve shootings faster. Previously, the agency deployed the van in Baltimore and Chicago.

Over the last several years, the ATF has pumped millions of dollars into the program, creating joint investigative task forces with police in cities most prone to gun violence.

In Texas, which led the nation in gun deaths in 2016, there were more than 3,300 deaths attributed to firearms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That same year, more than 400 people died in Houston from gunfire, including 259 homicides and 160 suicides. Firearms also were used to commit 5,457 aggravated assaults.

Houston police Chief Art Acevedo, at a press event to announce the deployment, said ballistics testing frequently took up to two weeks when he first took over here in late 2016. He decided to prioritize testing after seeing work done by gun-crime task forces in Denver and Milwaukee. Since then, testing at the Houston Forensic Science Center has dropped to between 24 and 48 hours.

But in emergency situation, the deployment of the NIBIN van means that detectives will be able to get investigative leads in just hours.

"The sooner we can hit the ground running, the better chances we'll be able to catch the suspect," Acevedo said.

The joint task force of ATF and Houston police obtained their first conviction last year, and in the year since, local investigators have arrested and charged 37 people based off NIBIN leads. Milanowski said the Harris County Sheriff's Office will soon be joining the task force.

The ballistics comparison technology only works with guns that previously have been used in crimes, and where investigators recovered bullet casings and entered them into the federal database.

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Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com