LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville Metro Police officers joined a federal training session downtown Tuesday aimed at helping them use all the best resources to solve violent crimes in the city.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives partnered with LMPD for a training summit Tuesday, bringing prosecutors together with state and local officers for a session at the KFC Yum! Center in downtown Louisville aimed at strengthening gun investigations to solve violent crimes.

The summit covered a wide array of strategies, ATF said in a news release, including trends, federal offenses, investigations and strategies. Local and state police were also informed of all the latest resources available to them, including ATF's National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, a system designed to link violent crimes through a database of evidence from city to city and state to state.

"NIBIN, as it's known, is a system that's designed to help law enforcement connect violent crimes to draw investigative leads so that they can identify individuals who are responsible for committing gun violence," ATF Special Agent in Charge Shawn Morrow said Tuesday.

Morrow said NIBIN is similar to the Combined DNA Index System, but, instead, it uses bullets.

"When we investigate violent crime, we know that certain evidence leaves unique marks," he said.

In fiscal year 2022, 631,000 pieces of evidence were entered into NIBIN, generating more than 189,000 leads from nearly 300 NIBIN locations across the country. A lead is evidence of the same firearm involved in one or more violent crime.

In 2022, Kentucky NIBIN sites produced 3,753 leads, ranking Kentucky sixth in the country when combining cities of Louisville, Lexington and Madisonville:

  1. Philadelphia
  2. Milwaukee
  3. San Antonio
  4. Phoenix
  5. Dallas
  6. Kentucky

NIBIN can be critical to closing cases. In fact, days after the Interstate 75 shooting in Kentucky, investigators are using that type of technology in the case against 32-year-old Joseph Couch. 

"(It) was utilized in the same investigation to help investigators understand how many firearms might have been used in the crime and also whether or not it was connected to other offenses," Morrow said.

LMPD Interim Chief Paul Humphrey said more than two dozen of his officers attended Tuesday's summit, including division detectives, impact units and the Criminal Interdiction Division.

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