Ballistic Fingerprints: New crimebusting technology on the scene

United Press Int'l ^ | 12/30/2002 | ADRIANNA BORKOWSKI

[new cruelty]

New crimebusting technology on the scene

By ADRIANNA BORKOWSKI, UPI Business Correpondent

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Trace the microscopic bumps and ridges that are burned and scraped into a criminal's discharged ammunition and you may have the key to unlocking a series of violent crimes.

That's what one of Forensics Technology Inc.'s products does.

The Montreal-based company's IBIS -- Integrated Ballistics Identification System -- decodes a gun's "DNA" from bullets and cartridge casings. The company was created when a Canadian law enforcement officer approached businessman Robert Walsh in 1990 with an idea for using machine vision in forensics.

"For me it was fascinating. It was something that had never been done before, and there was a definite confirmed problem in law enforcement -- the volume of evidence was too high, and they didn't have enough resources," said Walsh, president of FTI.

Within a year, Walsh created imaging machines and computers that captured the images of a bullet, translated the image into pixels and numbers and stored the information in a database.

"I found that unlike in the industrial sector, (the) law enforcement or forensic labs were an underserved market. People were certainly selling software, but for someone to go with an integrated approach to a specific problem, not many people were doing that," Walsh said.

FTI, a privately owned company since its 1992 incorporation, has grown quickly, from an initial three or four employees to 240 employees. They have been contracted in 29 countries including Colombia, Israel, South Africa and Russia and Algeria.

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Well Said Reb !