{"id":27660,"date":"2024-05-14T19:31:57","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T19:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-gun-and-its-story-farmington-investigators-get-a-new-tool\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:07:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:07:38","slug":"a-gun-and-its-story-farmington-investigators-get-a-new-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-gun-and-its-story-farmington-investigators-get-a-new-tool\/","title":{"rendered":"A gun and its story: Farmington investigators get a new tool"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"San
San Juan County Sheriff's Office Crime Scene Investigator Katie Mason took a \u201cweeks worth of training\u201d to learn how to use the NIBIN system.Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A gun can tell a story, providing law enforcement with information about where it\u2019s been used in a crime and possibly where it might go next.<\/p>\n

That is the purpose of the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, according to Brendan Iber, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives\u2019 Phoenix Field Division.<\/p>\n

A mobile NIBIN unit has been in San Juan County since Feb. 23 to help law enforcement officers meet one of their top priorities \u2013 solving gun crimes, which are on the rise locally and across the nation.<\/p>\n

Farmington became the focus of national news coverage a year ago today when Beau Wilson, 18, of Farmington walked up and down Dustin Avenue firing off hundreds of rounds of ammunition.<\/p>\n

It has been \u201cone year since an active shooter in Farmington killed three citizens and shot two police officers \u2013 one Farmington Police officer and one State Police officer,\u201d Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe said Monday during a news conference introducing NIBIN to the community.<\/p>\n

\"A
A .45-caliber casing is prepared for analysis. (Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe are particularly sensitive to gun crime, and doing everything we can to uncover who the suspects are to make arrests as fast as we can to keep our community safe,\u201d Hebbe said, adding that the mobile NIBIN unit has helped.<\/p>\n

\u201cFarmington PD has already had four hits, and we haven\u2019t even hit three months yet, so four leads connecting shootings in Farmington to other places as far away as El Paso,\u201d Hebbe said. \u201cThat\u2019s very significant, when you think that we have just started to tap into the potential of this tool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NIBIN tool is operated by the ATF, and it \u201ccompares images of submitted ballistic evidence from shooting scenes and recovered firearms and produces a list of potential correlated leads and hits. This is evidence that can help solve a shootings,\u201d Iber said.<\/p>\n

He spoke outside the mobile NIBIN unit Monday at the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Lee Acres Substation, where the unit has been parked and utilized for four months.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is turn around NIBIN leads and get the information back to investigators within 24 to 48 hours while the trail is still hot,\u201d Iber said. \u201cA NIBIN hit occurs when two or more firearms ballistic evidence acquisitions are identified as a confirmed match.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are four NIBIN machines in New Mexico. Three are in Albuquerque, and one is in Santa Fe at the New Mexico State Police headquarters.<\/p>\n

\u201cFour machines in New Mexico are not enough,\u201d Iber said.<\/p>\n

\"San
San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari speaks at a news conference Monday in front of the mobile NIBIN unit at the Lee Acres substation. Pictured from left are ATF Special Agent in Charge Brendan Iber of the Phoenix office, U.S. Attorney Alexander Uballez, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres and Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe.Brad Ryan\/Special to the Tri-City Record<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres agreed, saying he has made a commitment to secure funding for permanent NIBIN machines in every part of the state by working with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.<\/p>\n

\u201cFarmington has been chosen as one of the sites to place a permanent machine to collaborate aggressively and work aggressively with our law enforcement partners to make sure we have a clear understanding of the groups and individuals that are behind these violent crimes and to have a better and deeper appreciation for the dynamics of violence,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t do enough to take a deeper dive into the underlying dynamics sharing intelligence, sharing information and trying to disrupt violence as it occurs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Torres added NIBIN can be used as \u201ca tool for us to disrupt violence as it\u2019s happening to get in front of the violence and come up with solid leads that we can deliver to front line investigators, front line detectives and really try to lower the overall violence in our community. There\u2019s been no better partner for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hebbe said the community should \u201cbe taking note that we have federal and state partners that remember San Juan County and are bringing resources up here to help us with our problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

The use of the machine is just one aspect of solving crime. It takes partnerships between all agencies involved, according Alexander Uballez, U.S. Attorney for New Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NIBIN machine is not a Magic Eight Ball. You can\u2019t shake it and out comes a suspect,\u201d Uballez said. \u201cIt relies on the work of all our partners in law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through the NIBIN initiative, Uballez said all the agencies have come together and worked closely to solve crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we all know crime and violent crime see no borders,\u201d Uballez said.<\/p>\n

San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe criminals you see in Farmington, you see in San Juan County, you see in Durango. This machine will give us a better ability to track people who are going in and out of our communities committing crimes far beyond even San Juan County \u2013 across the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSince we\u2019ve had the NIBIN bus here, in the last two months we\u2019ve had 350 entries into the NIBIN system with 12 hits, six that we believe are good investigative leads moving forward,\u201d Ferrari said. \u201cIt\u2019s really going to give us a leg up so we can get ahead of where these criminal are operating.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are four steps to making NIBIN work for the community, according to Iber. First, there has to be comprehensive collection and entry of evidence, which consists of \u201ccartridge casings recovered from crime scenes as well as test fires from recovered crime guns,\u201d Iber said.<\/p>\n

Second, there needs to be a timely turnaround, because \u201cviolent crime investigations can rapidly go cold,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Third, there needs to be investigative follow-up and prosecution, and finally a feedback loop between law enforcement partners.<\/p>\n

There is no timeline as to when the permanent NIBIN unit will arrive in San Juan County. Torres said it takes about six months to build the units, and there is the question of when the federal funds will become available. He estimates it might be the end of the year when it arrives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mobile ATF unit helps Farmington law enforcement solve gun crimes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80151,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27660\/revisions\/80151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27660"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}