Police told the City Council's Public Safety Committee Wednesday that their access to the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN, helped build a case against five teenage suspects in a series of incidents that began with an Oct. 31 drive-by shooting that wounded two children on Bridges Drive.
Detective Jordan Lemons said spent shell casings from shooting scenes were entered into a NIBIN testing lab in Greensboro.
"We can rush these over there, get them entered, and I can get responses back in like an hour. It's pretty amazing," he said. "This case right here is one of the first that we've been able to use this approach where we've sped things up, and it just started exploding with leads."
Investigators linked the suspects to 18 different firearms that were traced to 17 incidents in High Point and 18 more in other parts of the Triad, police said.
"NIBIN is a very good tool for investigation for intelligence purposes, where we start linking these together," Lemons said.
Detective Dan Sellers said the target of the Bridges Drive shooting was a Bloods gang member, and not the 10- and 14-year-old victims.
A suspect was arrested two days later when one of the cars investigators believe was used by the shooters was recovered on Shadow Valley Road.
A related incident occurred Nov. 8 at the Brentwood Crossing Apartments parking lot, where a man sustained a gunshot wound to the leg.
Two days later, shots were again fired at the complex. No one was injured, but a separate shooting nearby on Lamb Avenue Nov. 13 wounded a person on a bicycle.
The next day, three juveniles were taken into custody and one of them admitted to an affiliation with the Crips gang, Sellers said.
"I love NIBIN. I think it's a wonderful tool. It's technology at its finest," said police Chief Travis Stroud. "We're still pushing our NIBIN program. I wouldn't say we're anywhere close to 100% where we need to be."
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