At the Portland Police Bureau’s North Precinct, Officer Jason Hubert is getting ready to fire a confiscated handgun into a thick metal bullet trap filled a thick sludge called snake oil.
He’s about to enter a bullet casing into the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN), a nationwide database of high resolution images of shell casings managed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The NIBIN terminals and data are new investigative tools for hundreds of local police departments, allowing them to match markings on shell casings with casings found at other crime scenes, and sometimes with guns.
Hubert dons his bullet proof vest, eye and ear protection, and checks the weapon to make sure it works properly. After warning the precinct over a PA system of the test fire, a colleague holds out a net to catch the shell casings.
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