The Columbia City Council unanimously passed two bills that authorize the Columbia Police Department’s request to reacquire an upgraded gun identification technology, at Monday night’s meeting.
The city will purchase a $208,934 package that uses and adds entries to the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network, an automated ballistic imaging database.
The funds will be appropriated from the city’s Asset Forfeiture Fund.
According to a council memo, NIBIN is a “national database of digital images of spent bullets and cartridge cases that were found at crime scenes or test-fired from confiscated weapons,” managed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
When manufactured, each firearm has small markings that make it unique and identifiable. The ATF says the NIBIN technology works by taking manually entered firearm casing evidence and comparing those images against its database.
“Law enforcement can search against evidence from their jurisdiction, neighboring ones, and others across the country,” according to the ATF.
This new package is intended to streamline the process of identifying a weapon once it’s in CPD’s possession.
CPD already uses NIBIN, but is required to send the shell casings out of state for imaging results, which takes two to three weeks on average.
“That has to be processed up in Cedar Rapids, and they have to go through it and get it back to us,” Mayor Barbara Buffaloe previously told KOMU 8.
This new Acquisition & Triage package will allow CPD to do the casing imaging in-house and give results in “24 hours or less.”
“We’re already using this technology,” CPD Assistant Chief Lance Bollinger said. “We’ve been using this technology since 2019 with a lot of success. The reason we want to get it in the house is to speed up the process.”
The technology’s main purpose beyond comparing ballistics, is for CPD to use that information and “reduce firearms violence, identify shooters, and refer them for prosecution,” according to a council memo.
“Since 2019, we’ve had 183 NIBIN leads,” Bollinger said during Monday’s meeting. “183 times we’ve developed information from the system that gave us an investigative lead. It told us what gun fired the shell casing or it matched up the shell casing to other shooting scenes.”
In addition to already using NIBIN, CPD Chief Jill Schlude said police were previously also using this in-house imaging for a short amount of time.
“We had this piece of technology a few years ago and then the second amendment protection act was passed by the state legislature,” Schlude said before Monday’s meeting. “That really impacted our relationships with our federal partners so we only had the machine in-house for about 14 or 15 months before it went back to the ATF.”
The second amendment protection act Schlude referenced briefly prohibited Missouri’s state and local officials from participating in joint federal task forces, like NIBIN, in 2021.
“That law got struck down and so that’s why we re-initiated this ask,” Schlude said.
Because CPD has previously used this upgraded technology, some in the department have also been trained to use it.
“The good thing is a lot of the tech staff is already trained on using the system,” Schlude said. “When we had it here before, we had some of the same folks in our evidence team and so they know how to use some of the system. So we just need to re-train them.”
Bollinger said he believes this upgrade will help police connect incidents between repeat offenders, quicker.
“When asked about repeat offenders being the ones who are committing crimes — absolutely. We’ve got years worth of data that supports that a lot of people who are involved in one shooting will be involved in multiple shootings, both as suspects and victims.”
Ward 5 Councilmember Don Waterman, who voted to pass the bills on Monday, agreed with Bollinger.
“I think the big thing it will do is it will bring things together,” Waterman said. “Maybe (it will) tie up some loose ends, help us to realize that some cases didn’t seem to be connected are, because there was a common firearm that was used.”
Terry Osthoff, of St. Charles, came to Monday night’s meeting specifically to address the council about the importance of police, against gun violence in Columbia.
His daughter, a freshman student at the University of Missouri, was a victim of a shooting that happened in downtown Columbia on Nov. 10. Osthoff said workers at downtown restaurant Wingin Out opened their locked doors that night to let her and her friends in, after his daughter was injured.
The freshman didn’t suffer life-threatening injuries but is still dealing with the effects of the shooting, Osthoff told KOMU 8.
“She does have some shrapnel in her leg,” Osthoff said. “It may stay in there, it may come out, we don’t really know at this point.”
Osthoff said he wanted to tell his daughter’s story and let the council know why police presence downtown is so important.
“I know police protection is not just for (University of) Missouri students,” Osthoff said. “There is a big community here so it’s for everybody. But when there are 350,000 students that show up for nine months out of the year, it’s very important we feel secure in the environment.”
He said his daughter is healing physically — but emotionally, they are still concerned about her.
“She realizes that it could have been worse, it could have been a closer call,” Osthoff said.
But even with upgraded technology like NIBIN, Schlude said there is more CPD needs to better fight crime.
“Even if we filled all 23 vacancies tomorrow, we don’t have enough people to appropriately staff beats and specialized units,” Schlude said. “People are asking about if we want to bring things back like the downtown unit or increase the size of the homeless outreach team, and more people to the street crimes units… You can’t do that without more staff.”
The NIBIN purchased package will include:
- BRASSTRAX acquisition station
- PAG800 Stereo Zoom microscope
- Cartridge case training kit
- Color printer
Monday’s decision was split into two bills — the first amended the fiscal year 2025 annual budget, by appropriating $208,934 from the Asset Forfeiture Fund and using that money to purchase the NIBIN package.
The second bill, authorizes memorandums of understanding with the U.S. Department of Justice, and the ATF, associated with the NIBIN system, about the information that CPD would enter into the database.
Columbia will be the fifth NIBIN partner site in Missouri, after St. Louis, Kansas City, Independence, and Clayton.
After the first four years, the NIBIN package will cost the city approximately $20,000 per year.
Albert-Oakland Improvement Project
The council unanimously passed proposed improvements to existing amenities at Albert-Oakland park, including new pickleball courts.
New playground equipment will also be installed and renovations will be made to two existing shelters.
The new 10-court pickleball complex will replace two of the three existing tennis courts at the park.
The Parks and Recreation department said the newly constructed amenities will also be ADA compliant, according to a council memo.
Crews are set to begin working on the improvements during winter 2024, and finish by spring 2026. The improvements will be funded by the 2021 Parks Sales tax and has a budget of $640,000.