Attorney General Lockyer Releases Report on Ballistics "Fingerprinting" Database

January 29, 2003
03-013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(916) 324-5500

(SACRAMENTO) – Attorney General Bill Lockyer today released to the California Legislature a report on the feasibility of creating a ballistics "fingerprinting" database to assist law enforcement officers in solving crimes by matching crime scene evidence with ballistics information from handguns sold in the state.

"Automated ballistics fingerprinting already is helping forensic experts using relatively small databases to compare cartridge cases found at crime scenes," Lockyer said. "The expansion of the databases to include hundreds of thousands of newly-manufactured firearms has the potential to be a great crime-solving tool for law enforcement officers.

"However, our analysis concludes that today's technology is not yet adequate to handle the volume associated with adding all new guns to the database and still provide useful information for investigators," Lockyer said. "We firmly believe that current technological obstacles will be overcome before long and that there should be further scientific research at both the state and federal level in order to provide law enforcement agencies throughout the country with an effective ballistics system that will solve many more crimes and save many more lives."

The Department of Justice (DOJ) was directed to study the feasibility of establishing a California ballistics identification system by AB 1717 (Hertzberg, 2000). Such a system involves imaging cartridge cases or bullets, which are microscopically marked by the firing pin, ejector, barrel and other internal mechanisms as they are expelled from a firearm. The size, shape and location of these marks can then be used to establish a smaller group of firearms that share the same characteristics. While a database should be able to create the smaller group automatically, the final candidates must be visually examined and compared by specially trained forensic scientists who make a conclusive "hit," or match, with bullets or cartridge cases found at crime scenes. The DOJ report found that in California, where 80,000 new handguns were purchased in 2002 alone, the database would be too big to quickly narrow the pool of images for comparison purposes using existing technology.

In preparing its report, the DOJ consulted with law enforcement officers, firearms manufacturers, forensic scientists, manufacturers of ballistics imaging technology and other organizations. The first meeting was held in April 2001. A limited study was prepared by the DOJ's Bureau of Forensic Services (BFS), which raised serious questions about the ability of current computer matching technology to accommodate a ballistics imaging database that would be as large as California's. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Forensic Technology, Inc., currently the only provider of ballistics imaging technology worldwide, submitted extensive comments in rebuttal to the BFS findings. The DOJ contracted with renowned, independent forensic scientist and firearms examiner Dr. Jan De Kinder of the National Institute for Forensic Science in Belgium to analyze the technologies discussed in those reports and comments.

Based on De Kinder's report and the other studies, the DOJ determined that a database using current technology would be unable to reduce the number of cartridge cases sharing similar characteristics to the extent that scientists would be able to provide a "hit," or match, with crime scene evidence.

The report calls for further study into several areas. At the federal level, the report urges officials to work with other states in determining appropriate protocols that would allow states to share resources and ballistics imaging data. The Department of Justice's Bureau of Forensic Services is poised to perform at least three studies:

• The impact that repeated firing of a firearm has on the markings on cartridge cases, and how it affects the ability of scientists to compare images and establish a "hit."
  
  
• Which ammunition is best suited for imaging.
  
  
• And the potential benefit of using an emerging technology in which the firearm "microstamps" a unique number on cartridge cases as they are fired from firearms equipped with the microstamp.