Savannah-Chatham police acquires IBIS TRAX-3D system
Posted by Andre Demers on Tue, May 25, 2010
The Savannah-Chatham Police Department is the latest US department to obtain an IBIS TRAX-3D system. Not only does the system serve that area, but the city of Valdosta has made an aggreement to submit their shell casings to Savannah so that they too can be submitted into the NIBIN database.
From The Savannah Morning News:
On April 21, shots rang out in front of an Augusta Avenue restaurant, striking an innocent bystander.
Shell casings from fired rounds, strewn about the ground where the shooting occurred, were collected as evidence.
These days, Savannah-Chatham police don't have to wait days - even weeks - to reveal the secrets those casings hold. About two weeks ago, metro police acquired a ballistics testing machine from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that allows shell-case investigations to be carried out in-house, said Maj. Mark Gerbino, who commands the department's criminal investigations division.
"You can never really anticipate whether a tool or the criminal interview will break the case," Gerbino said. "But this technology puts us right up front alongside any other agency in the country."
Before receiving the machine, police relied on the GBI to process shell casings, which took days. The new machine can do the job in as little as 12 minutes, Gerbino said.
Read the full story about Savannah's new IBIS TRAX-3D system here.