IMPD crime gun detectives aim for trigger pullers

Along with more federal help, IMPD is enhancing its focus on those who do the most damage in the city.

Metro Police are utilizing several task forces and directed investigative techniques to collect evidence and intelligence to track down trigger pullers whether they hit anyone with their bullets or not.

“We’re able with our detectives go out and collect any evidence that was collected at the scene,” said IMPD Lt. Ron Brezik of the Indiana Crime Guns Task Force. “We’re able to compare that now, the evidence that is collected, with a national database, which includes our own department, so we know that if that gun was used in a shooting at a house the night before.”

Detectives say a year ago, Tavon Macklin was cutting a murderous swath across Indianapolis. Gun evidence collected at all three locations led to two charges of murder and a count of Unlawful Possession of a Firearm by Serious Violent Felon.

So far, IMPD has trained 100 officers to collect gun evidence in the field and expects to add another 40 this year.

One of those officers was on the scene as FOX59 News witnessed the arrest of a man wanted for a recent shootout at a near northside apartment complex.

IMPD Violent Crimes Task Force Detective Tiffany Rand boots up her computer in a basement office at North District headquarters every morning looking for shots fired, aggravated assault, gun seizure and murder runs from the night before.

She also checks the progress of cases she’s filed with the Marion County Prosecutors Office seeking warrants for suspects involved in gunplay.

On the day we rode with Rand her partner, detectives were looking for a suspect caught on camera exchanging gunshots with another man inside a parking garage at the 16 Park Apartments.

“Him and another associate had some sort of altercation,” said Rand, “and the other guy, his friend, or was his friend, ambushed him as he walked around the corner.”

The two shooters missed each other but a records check by Rand determined Jaqwan Wright did not possess a handgun license, even though he was in the application process, and that gave investigators the probable cause they needed to stake out his apartment with an arrest warrant and ask questions about the parking garage shootout.

Within a half-hour, Wright peaked out his apartment door, entered the garage and moved his van less than a block away, giving detectives enough time and space to move in.

“Is there anything illegal in your car?” Rand asked.

“My gun,” said Wright.

“Your gun is in there?” she asked. “Do you mind if we take a look in there? You good with that?”

Wright gave his consent and Rand so informed a uniformed officer trained in the collection of gun evidence.

“He just told me where his gun is. It’s in the cabinet part of the van.”

Minutes later Wright’s gun was discovered and bagged and prepared for testing to compare it to a shell casing recovered at the scene of the parking garage shootout while Wright was taken in handcuffs to North District to be asked about the identity of the man with whom he traded shots a couple weeks before.

Last year IMPD violent crime and crime guns detectives took 1141 firearms off the streets and shared their expertise with the recently created Indiana Crime Guns Task Force.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has announced Indianapolis’ participation in Operation Overdrive in an attempt to dismantle criminal enterprises and enhance gun evidence and intelligence cooperation and IMPD has long participated in the National Public Safety Partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice which not only brings federal resources to the city’s fight against violent crime but also results in more federal prosecution of local cases.

“Crime gun intelligence centers have been really successful,” said Dr. David Carter of the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice. “Other agencies have been working with them, trying to do this with a task force approach, particularly what we’re seeing with the National Public Safety Partnership is reaching out to working with federal agencies, and I think Indy is a member of PSP, so, we’re working with other agencies.”

Rand said that through improved evidence collection and intelligence sharing, detectives are better able to predict who is likely to be involved in the next act of violence, even though sometimes police and prosecutors can’t act fast enough to stop the gunfire.

“We had a guy who had shot up his ex-girlfriend’s house, and actually a stray bullet hit her sister as she was running inside, and he had a pretty lengthy criminal history, violent priors, and we weren’t able to get the arrest warrant fast enough because he ended up committing an armed robbery and actually shooting and killing someone just a week after that.”

On January 27th, crime guns detectives were conducting surveillance near 19th and Rural Streets on the eastside when they watched a shooting go down and grabbed two juveniles with a gun before they could run away.

“It’s not uncommon, though, for people to swap guns, we see it a lot, especially with juveniles, they trade guns back and forth all the time,” said Rand. “A lot of times it’s all retaliation. So, we had someone shot last week and the victim, family and friends, they want to come out and get revenge, so, it may not be the specific target they’re looking for, it may be a family member’s house.”

IMPD is putting more emphasis on collecting evidence and sharing intelligence even about incidents where no one is injured all in an effort to identify the gun and the person holding it in the event that someday that firearm is used to commit murder or mayhem.

“Are we helping the situation?” Lt. Brezik asked. “Obviously we are with the amount of guns that we have confiscated, the amount of arrests that we have made on gun crimes and things like that, I don’t know how to quantify that number. Would more have been murdered if we hadn’t taken so many off the street?”

Detectives tell us that despite all the expertise and sense of urgency they bring to their investigations, they’re often frustrated that while they’re still filing charges on gun suspects who have been arrested, those suspects have already bailed out of jail and are back on the streets with a gun in their hands while the charging information is still making its way through the prosecutor’s office to be signed.