I never understood how the police catch a shooter?
2007-02-27 09:24:20 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Law Enforcement & Police
Well, the bullet will tell them what TYPE of gun, and they can see who they know with that kind of gun (kind of useless in a big place with a common gun), but unless that gun has been analyzed before, they won't be able to trace it.
There was a movement to require test firings and put the barrel scoring (the unique pattern each gun makes) on record, before sales, so police could trace nearly any new gun, but to my knowledge this has never been put into practice.
2007-02-27 09:33:03 · answer #1 · answered by T J 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ballistics testing. As has been said, though, they can't really trace a bullet to a gun unless they have the gun already. Usually the gun is ditched somewhere and the cops have to piece the case together.
The sound triangulation system is already deployed in New Jersey and I think Los Angeles. I've read that it exists and it sounds like a great idea, but I don't know how well it works.
2007-02-27 10:28:45 · answer #2 · answered by dussin23 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Usually he is the idiot still standing there with a gun in his hand.
On rare occasions they find some passerby who saw the crime and can pick out who the shooter was. If it is a gang-related shooting the witnesses develop fear of being the next victim.
Boston is going to try a new sound triangulation setup that claims to be able to pinpoint where the shooting came from so quickly that police can get there before the shooter gets away, but that might turn out to be just another gimmick like that face-identifier they bought for Logan airport that claimed it could identify any terrorist who passed by their camera [haven't found one yet].
The usual hope is that if they can pickup a possible suspect they can find where he hid a recently-fired weapon that is a ballistic match to the slugs in the victim. Again that is tough to do in real life and many gun crimes go unsolved.
2007-02-27 09:38:43 · answer #3 · answered by Rich Z 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There's a reason why you have to have a licence for your gun. It's so that the cops could trace you if they need to.
2007-02-27 09:32:56 · answer #4 · answered by Naru 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋