MD-IBIS, (the MD CoBIS program,) not used in murder case
Maryland’s Automated Ballistic Fingerprinting IBIS System
Played No Role in Convicting a Murderer
by Philip F. Lee, 2/15/06
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE
WHOLE REPORT IN PDF FORMAT
From the report:
On April 2, 2005 the Washington Post
published a news article [1] asserted that Maryland’s ballistic
fingerprinting database was successful in gaining a convictions of Robert
Garner for the murder of Kelvin Braxton outside of a Popeye’s
restaurant in Prince Georges County on April 23, 2004. The Post quotes
PG state’s attorney Glen Ivey saying "It was powerful evidence.
I hope this verdict helps our efforts to have the [ballistics identification
database] continued and expanded."
...
Many reports indicate that IBIS doesn’t
work, so it was surprising to hear the Ivey statement. It is worthwhile
to confirm Ivey’s assertion about the usefulness of IBIS or the
stored ballistic fingerprint to this case to justify future actions
about Maryland’s shell casing collection process. This usefulness
should be evident from the court transcripts [3] of the Garner trial.
These transcripts make clear that IBIS played no role at
all in solving this case or in convicting Garner of murdering Kelvin
Braxton. It’s not even a close call. Police testified
that IBIS was not used – rather only manual ballistic examinations
were given in evidence! ...
5/7/2004 Garner arrested and charged with the murder
of Braxton ...
10/25/2004 ... Maryland State Police, compares the
shell casing of gun purchased by Michele Garner (Anderson) stored by
MSP and retrieved by Clarence E. Fields with the evidence shell casings
– specifically one of the evidence casings – manually using
a comparison microscope and concludes the evidence casing and MSP stored
casing are from the same gun.
This murder case was also heralded by Bill
Hammond who is a columnist for the New York Daily News and wrote an opinion
about Pataki's CoBIS or "Gun DNA" program called "Gov
has promises to keep, Pataki must get tough on Washington to make bullet
DNA program work Originally published on December 27, 2005.
In the article he stated; "Then maybe New York could match the success
of Maryland's ballistic-imaging program, which scored its first conviction
- for murder, no less - this year." (CLICK
HERE TO SEE THE ARTICLE AND MY RESPONSE FROM JAN. 2006.)
A big thanks to Philip F. Lee for all of
the work and spending the time to put the information together. |
Toodle-loo, gun thugs
CLICK
HER FOR THE NY Daily News Story, BY TONY SCLAFANI, DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU
 Please
note that while they talk about the "Midwestern smugglers"
and the "Ohio based crew", it was "Yusef Logan, 31,
of Queens, who heads a major smuggling ring, cops said." and
he was the one who was exporting NYC's crime to the other states.
I note that Logan also brought in guns from other gangs in other states. |
In the biggest gun bust in memory, undercover
NYPD cops nabbed a band of Midwestern smugglers in Queens yesterday -
including one holed up in a porta-potty with a mother lode of brand-new
weapons, officials said.
The predawn operation capped an 11-month
sting that netted the NYPD close to 120 illegal firearms - including powerful
assault rifles - and the alleged ringleader of a nationwide trafficking
organization.
"This is a very, very significant
seizure ... the biggest one that I can remember," Police Commissioner
Raymond Kelly said. "They were the source of scores of guns sold
illegally on the streets of New York in the last year."
Cops lassoed the Ohio-based crew as members
were closing their latest deal in a quiet area off the Belt Parkway in
Springfield Gardens, police said.
The suspects dropped off dealer Matthew
Brown, 19, who stuffed himself and two large boxes of guns into a green-and-white
Royal Flush portable john at a dead end near a construction site on 145th
Ave. and 178th Place, cops said.
Then the suspects headed to Farmers Blvd.
two blocks away to meet the unidentified buyers, collect the cash and
tell them where Brown was hiding with the goods.
Unbeknown to them, the NYPD firearms investigations
unit was watching both spots and moved in just after 5 a.m. to arrest
crew leader Douglas Wellington and his associates - Brown; Amire Smith,
23, and a woman, Achsah Washington, 21, all of Columbus, Ohio.
Inside the potty, cops found 17 handguns
bought out of state, including 10 9-mm. pistols, neatly wrapped in boxes.
The cache brought to 116 the number of
guns seized from the Ohio gang under an 11-month NYPD probe dubbed Operation
Tripod, Kelly said. Weapons also were illegally trafficked in from gun
stores in Maine, California and Nevada, he said.
Street prices ranged from $200 for a Marlin
30-30 rifle to $1,750 for a Tec-9 machine pistol, but most of the guns
were popular 9-mm. pistols with a street price of $1,000.
The bust came a month after Mayor Bloomberg
pledged a national campaign to stop the flow of illegal guns into New
York - and it was a coup for the NYPD.
"Seventy-two percent of all guns used
in crimes in New York City originate from out of state," Kelly said.
"But it's rare to apprehend the out-of-town supplier."
Ohio is one of the top sources of illegal
guns, Kelly said. Others include Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
The Ohio suspects had worked as middlemen,
or straw purchasers, to deliver firepower to Yusef Logan, 31, of Queens,
who heads a major smuggling ring, cops said.
Logan would then sell the guns to Daniel
Awuku, 34, of Brooklyn, and Marvin Mrythil, 26, of Queens, who are accused
of supplying drug pushers and other criminals, police said.
Logan and Awuku were arrested Wednesday.
Mrythil - who had 200 bags of pot in his apartment - is on the run, cops
said.
From April until yesterday, the Ohio crew
allegedly sold 97 guns - with a street value of $118,000 - in 38 undercover
police buys in Brooklyn and Queens.
Some of the weapons rank among the most
powerful, including the classic assault rifle AK-47 and the Mac-11, the
U.S. version of the Israeli-made Uzi.
The gang made the 500-mile trek at least
five times, said Capt. Robert Tracy, commander of the firearms investigations
unit.
None of the seized guns has been linked
to any crime.
The fatal shootings of two NYPD cops last
year sparked stiffer state gun laws and demands from politicians to close
down the so-called Iron Pipeline that gunrunners use to bring out-of-state
weaponry to New York.
But Kelly conceded there is no clear solution
to the problem as long as there is demand for the contraband.
"Guns remain the weapon of first choice
among murderers in New York City," Kelly said.
With Richard Weir, Originally published on February 19, 2006 |
City of N Y v. Beretta U.S.A. Corp & Eastern District of N Y
& Judge Jack B. Weinstein
It is hard to keep up with this case that
is based on NY City's idea that gun makers somehow know and base their
marketing on the idea that the criminals in NY City are going to set up
criminal enterprise that export NY Cities's crime to other states by having
the NY Criminals provide a buyers market and distribution system that
somehow also forces people in other states to break local state and federal
law by making straw purchases in other states that respect their citizens
rights to own firearms without the "infringement" of having
to get prior approval from the government just to touch a handgun and
to register by make, model and serial number each handgun, (and in the
case of NYC each long gun,) a person plans to possess at any place other
than a gun range where the handgun's owner who has the handgun registered
on their license must be present. (Of course NY and NYC have no way to
combat this crime and are unable to do anything to impact the criminal
behavior like putting them in jail.)
And that in order to prove their case,
NY City has to have information from the Federal Firearms Trace System
database even if this data is incomplete, does not separated guns used
in crime by the original purchaser, guns bought in "Straw purchase,"
stolen guns or lost guns and emits all information from guns that have
no information, are not traceable because the serial number was removed
or the wrong serial number was recorded or the police just did not decide
to run a trace. The "crime guns" that they want to have the
trace for include guns legally purchased by legal gun owners who's only
crime was to move to NYC and fail to register their handgun.
For this case to go ahead the city had to
overcome the 2005 "Protection
of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act," that tries to end politically
motivated lawsuits designed to bankrupt law-abiding American firearm manufacturers
and retailers like this lawsuit does. Totally anti-gun Weinstein overcame
that problem by ruling that new statute makes an exception where the gun
sale violated the law, and the allegation here is that the sales in general
violated NY's nuisance law. However in November of 2005 new legislation
was signed into law as part of new appropriations legislation, that bars
the use of a federal database that tracks firearms as evidence in civil
litigation. Now Weinstein has been forced to as NYC why he should not
dismissed the case because it is going to be impossible for NYC to prove
their case without the data.
(Maybe NYC should bring another case against
all of the citizens of all the states that had members in Congress who
voted for the "Protection
of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act," because they are supporting
gun makers by electing officials who support the gun makers creating a
nuisance in NY and NYC.)
Get the whole story over at LAW.com,
Judge
Questions Viability of NYC's Gun Litigation, Weinstein orders hearing
on impact of federal act. "The city's lawsuit, now more
than five years old, has received the strong backing of Mayor Michael
R. Bloomberg. It alleges that gun manufacturers -- including Beretta U.S.A.
Corp., Smith & Wesson Corp., and Colt's Manufacturing Company -- have
created a public nuisance through the sale and marketing of weapons that
are later used to commit crimes. The city is not seeking monetary damages,
but wants changes to the gun industry's marketing practices. It also is
seeking attorney fees. "
PAST ARTICLES
|
A call to NYAGV
I decided to call New Yorkers
Against Gun Violence to see if they would send me a copy of the petition
that they have sent out to the Chief of Police in all of the departments
across NY State asking them to sign on to support A2466A,
the NY copy of the "Model Law Banning Assault Weapons" written
by The Coalition To Stop Gun Violence based, ( http://www.csgv.org/ )
in Washington, DC and the from the Legal Community Against Violence, (
http://www.lcav.org )based in San Francisco, CA., both IANSA groups. Jackie
Kuhls, the new Executive Director for New Yorkers Against Gun Violence,
answered the phone, took my name and phone number and promised to call
me back, something that she did a few hours latter. When I answered the
phone she asked me if I was George from OCShooters.com and I said yes.
Jackie told me that she would not send me
a petition unless I was willing to sign it but that all it contained was
a request to sign the petition to support the A2466A and that it was up
to the Chiefs to look up the law and see what it contained the we then
had a short discussion about the bill. Jackie could not understand why
anyone would not support it and did not think that any "hunting guns"
would be included. She said that only if the gun had a "high capacity
magazine" and another feature. When I said that she was wrong and
that the law read, "to accept a detachable magazine," not a
"high capacity magazine" she said that that did not matter because
you can always take out the magazine and put in a high capacity magazine.
When I talked to her about the handguns
that would be banned and you would not be able to keep them on your pistol
license because they have a magazine outside of the grip, 
 the
style of 22 caliber semi-auto that is used in the 22 caliber competitions
in the Olympics and is the type of gun that most bullseye shooters would
like to own some day like the Walther
and Hammerli,
she just did not understand what I was talking about. Jackie said that
if I was worried about some "isolated imported gun" that the
new law had a provision that allowed the Superintendent Of State Police
to take guns off of the assault weapons list and we could take it up with
them. (Fat Chance.) However as far as I can tell, the law only allows
the Superintendent to add guns to the list, not take them off.
Jackie was upset with me and accused me
of harassing the Chiefs of Police who had signed the petition. I guess
that she wants their names and departments to be used in Albany but she
does not think that it is right that the Chiefs have to answer their local
community. Especially when every person that I have talked to signed the
petition with out knowing what was in it and did not look up the law.
When I talked to Chief Carl Schupp of the Blooming Grove Police Department,
he did not remember signing the petition, where he got it from or what
was in the proposed law. The only thing that he could say was that "It
sounds like something that I would sign." |
this
year at the Annual Hudson Highland Friends of the NRA Dinner on Friday
night, March 4th at Kuhl’s Highland House in Middletown. We hope
to break last year dinner where over 260 people attended and around $14,000
was raised for the NRA Foundation that spends the money on Education projects
with 1/2 of that money staying in NY State. Upstate NY NRA Field Representative
Jay Rusnock is coordinating the event as usual with help from the local
Committee. This is really a grand event with several hundred people attending
and hundreds of prizes and raffles to win. (I have won a handgun, a rifle,
a combo shotgun and many other prizes at these event.) The NRA is providing
6 Special NRA guns to be given away and we will have the famous "WALL
OF GUNS" where we sell 50 tickets and draw for a gun and if you win
you get to pick the gun or other prizes you want out of the may to select
from.
