ATF grant to boost investigative power of SPD

Paul Williams: BrassTrax machine will have a positive effect on crime numbers moving forward.

Nelson Kibby: The city limits can't be the boundary for catching criminals.

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The Springfield Police Department has amped up its investigative approach to gun crimes with a new piece of technology.

In his May 19 report to Springfield City Council, Chief Paul Williams said a Crime Gun Intelligence Center is now operational in the city.

At the heart of the center is the BrassTrax machine, a piece of equipment that analyzes ammunition cartridges to provide high-definition imaging that is passed along to the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network operated by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF.

Funds for the BrassTrax machine have been granted by the Local Law Enforcement Gun Crime Intelligence Center Integration Initiative, administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the granting agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, in partnership with the ATF.

The grant provides funding to state and local government entities that are experiencing an escalation in crime. The grant allows recipients to integrate with their local ATF Crime Gun Intelligence Centers.

“That is up and running,” Williams told council. “The BrassTrax machine will give us immediate feedback on ballistics data.”

The department is using a temporary machine on loan from Cape Girardeau, with a permanent machine on order, and it has hired a part-time analyst to run it. Additionally, Williams said, ATF recently notified him that it will provide funding for a full-time analyst to be housed in the city as part of a regional effort.

“It doesn’t just stop within the city limits,” he said of gun crime. “It’s within the county and our surrounding communities.”

Williams said the department in May test-fired 45 guns that were seized and received 10 hits on NIBIN, connecting those guns to people or crimes.

“Just an example of what we’re able to do with those resources, and they’ll continue to have a positive effect on those numbers moving forward,” he said.

In his report to council, Williams said gun violence had been trending upward until 2024.

“Last year, we reverted back to 2016 numbers, which is a great story,” he said.

He credited a combination of aggressive enforcement to take guns off the street from criminals and the efforts of the Springfield-Greene County Gun Safety and Gun Violence Reduction Collaborative.

He said there were significant increases over a four-year period in illegal guns seized, but last year that number decreased.

“It doesn’t mean that they’re doing less work; I think we’re doing a better job of responsible gun ownership and less illegal guns out there, and there’s less guns for us to seize from criminals,” he said.

Williams noted in the first quarter of 2025, a 4% decrease in crime has been observed year over year.

“I’ll take that,” he said. “To continue to see things overall decrease is a really good thing.”

Need outlined
SPD’s grant application outlines a rise in gun crimes in the city through 2023, the most recent statistics available at the time of the application. It notes that in 2023, Springfield’s population topped 170,000 and had 1,944 incidents of homicide, sexual assault and aggravated assault, giving it a violent crime rate just over 1,143 per 100,000 residents, or 1.1%. By comparison, the state’s violent crime rate in 2023 was 60% lower at 459 per 100,000.

SPD began monitoring shots-fired incidents in 2016, according to the application, and between 2016 and 2023, the number increased by more than 73%, with a baseline of 183 in 2016 and a high of 356 in 2022.

Homicides involving firearms increased by 117% in the study period, and aggravated assaults involving a firearm went up 131%.

“The high volume of firearm-involved aggravated assaults and homicides, but also of nonfatal shootings, demonstrates a need for establishing a CGIC in order to improve public safety in the region,” the application states.

The narrative notes that north Springfield has been disproportionately affected by gun crimes.

Business leaders have told Springfield Business Journal crime in the city is a top concern. The Economic Growth Series annual survey of business leaders asks them to identify what actions they would like to see from government to support their business, selecting all answers that apply. Improved safety and security came in second in 2025 with 52% of respondents calling for it, following a desire for improvements in infrastructure at 63%. However, in both 2023 and 2024, safety and security topped that list.

BrassTrax in action
SPD Acting Capt. Nelson Kibby said the national grant opportunity that provided the funding for the BrassTrax machine was competitive, but the department threw its hat in the ring with an application.

“We didn’t expect a lot from it,” he said.

The department had put together a crime gun intelligence center on its own, he said, with a borrowed BrassTrax machine that immediately started yielding investigative results.

With a new machine in place, the focus of the center will not just be Springfield, but a larger region, according to Kibby.

The size of the focus will be based on how much work the analysts can handle, Kibby said.

“We have to take that bigger approach – the city limits can’t be our boundary for catching criminals,” he said.

Kibby said the department hired a former SPD detective as a part-time analyst, and a full-time analyst from Texas, funded by ATF, will soon begin. Those funds, not part of the grant, will be ongoing, Kibby said.

The BrassTrax machine will create digital images of firing pin impressions and other markings firearms leave on shell casings, and SPD will submit those to a national correlation center run by ATF. There, similarities in casings will be ranked to generate investigative leads.

The information can be used to link two or three shooting scenes, Kibby said, or to link crime scenes to a suspect.

SPD Det. Eric Pinegar said the department has been test-firing about 40 firearms per month to get an average of five to eight investigative leads. The 10 leads generated in May were higher than the average.

Kibby said the info is useful to investigators.

“They can start putting brass and a gun with a person, and that leads to state charges and federal indictments,” he said.

If officers catch a known felon with a firearm, that leads to enhanced charges.

“Having these tools in our tool belt have given us an advantage,” he said.

Pinegar said the BrassTrax machine will lead to investigative efficiency. He added that time is of the essence, since the weapons used today may soon be dumped or discarded by perpetrators.

“We want shell casings from every scene as soon as possible,” he said. “Most of the time, we’re linking guns that are current. Something test-fired a year ago is not as important as a gun fired today.”

Federal grant
Council in November 2024 accepted a $700,000 Local Law Enforcement Crime Gun Intelligence Center Integration Initiative Grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, to be distributed in an 80%/20% split between the city and the Greene County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

The city’s larger portion, $560,000, was committed to the purchase and installation of a system to analyze cartridges and report findings to NIBIN, as well as the hiring of three part-time employees for analysis, with other funds dedicated to victim advocate supplies, prevention education and overtime funds.

The competitive grant was awarded to only three cities in 2024, according to the Bureau of Justice Assistance website; the others were Atlanta and Knoxville, Tennessee. Only 57 cities have received the grant, which has been offered since 2016. Kansas City is the only other Missouri city to have received the grant, according to the website.