New Chicago intelligence hub aims to ‘squeeze every last piece of evidence’ out of guns used in crimes
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, left, speaks with Christopher Amon, special agent in charge of the ATF in Chicago, inside the ATF’s new Crime Gun Intelligence Center.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Law enforcement leaders from Chicago to Washington came together Wednesday to dedicate a new federal hub designed to use the latest technology to trace guns used in crimes.
But the most crucial part of the new Crime Gun Intelligence Center might be far more basic: Investigators, prosecutors and analysts from various agencies will be sitting in a conference room together, every day, making connections between crime scenes that might have otherwise been missed.
It's been up and running for about a month. Group supervisor Mark Giacomantonio said the daily meetings are already “allowing us to really get to the bottom of things quicker, and then move on the information that we have much faster.”
The facility run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — where Giacomantonio works — is the latest effort to disrupt violent crime in Chicago, where a 9-year-old girl was killed and three boys were wounded Saturday when shots were fired on a confirmation celebration in Back of the Yards, leaving more than 70 shell casings behind.
Ariana Molina became the latest of at least 120 children, younger than 16, who were shot to death in the city since 2018, according to Chicago Sun-Times data. Police say they’ve taken more than 12,000 guns off the street in each of the past three years and 3,500 already this year.
“We really need to get a handle on gun crime in the city of Chicago,” police Supt. Larry Snelling told the Sun-Times this week. He said the Crime Gun Intelligence Center is “going to help us get there.”
Wednesday's unveiling of the center drew visits from Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco and ATF Director Steven Dettelbach. They were joined by Snelling, acting U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Christopher Amon, the ATF’s special agent in charge here.
Monaco told reporters that 13 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies will be working together inside the new gun center.
“That’s 65 agents, officers, analysts, prosecutors — all under one roof, working together to get shooters off the streets,” Monaco said. She called it “one of the top three” such centers in the country.
Dettelbach said the whole point is to “squeeze every last piece of evidence and information out of a gun used at a crime” by taking advantage of partnerships and data.
The gun center looks much like any other office space — it's filled with cubicles. But there’s space for members of the ATF, the Chicago Police Department, state and federal prosecutors and others.
Amon spent his first year on the job making the center a reality. He laid out his plan to the Sun-Times in September. The goal is to trace guns and shell casings from crime scenes to connect them to others, quickly painting a picture for investigators and helping them track down repeat offenders.
It’s built upon the ATF’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network and eTrace programs, each designed to help law enforcement quickly track the history of firearms used to commit crimes.
The Police Executive Research Forum studied the Crime Gun Intelligence Center model in a May 2017 report. The study included an earlier, “de-centralized” effort in Chicago. The agency concluded that gun centers are “not a panacea” but “an innovative and promising approach for enhancing the investigation of gun crimes.”
Amon — who Dettelbach called a “national leading expert” in the field — said he’s never seen one with the same level of staff as the new Chicago center. He credited Snelling with assigning a detective from each police area in the city to act as a liaison.
“If we get something from one of those areas, that area detective is going back to the area with that intelligence to help their colleagues in that investigation,” Amon said. “And that is new. That’s something we’ve never done here before.”
Investigators will also likely take advantage, for now, of the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system that Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to discontinue by year’s end. In a conversation with the Sun-Times, Dettelbach declined to second-guess decisions by local leaders like Johnson when it comes to the gunshot technology.
Rather, he said, “what we do is try to use the tools that we have, test what works, and then try to scale up.” The gun-intelligence strategy has increasingly been in use with the Chicago Police Department to help fight violent crime here, Dettelbach said.
The ATF director then pointed to last year’s 15% drop in people being killed in Chicago.
“What do you do when you’re implementing a strategy, and you start seeing positive results?” Dettelbach said. “You double and triple down on that strategy. So that is exactly what you’re seeing here.”
Contributing: Frank Main