‘Game-changer’: Hawaii gets first high-tech, ballistic evidence tool

News admin June 10, 2026 0 Comments

‘Game-changer’: Hawaii gets first high-tech, ballistic evidence tool

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – For the first time, Hawaii law enforcement agencies have a bullet-tracking system to help speed up shooting investigations.

The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) was named after fallen Maui police officer Suzanne O, who was shot and killed while on patrol last August.

Officials with the Department of Law Enforcement (DLE), each county’s police department, as well as federal partners, held a blessing for the site with officer O’s brother on Tuesday.

“Losing Suzanne O was a devastating thing that happened to Maui police and we’re only slowly recovering now, but to have this NIBIN system when it didn’t exist in Hawaii is a huge step forward,” Maui County deputy police chief Wade Maeda said.

To help catch criminals like officer O’s alleged killer, the NIBIN system compares images of casings left behind at shooting scenes with those at other crime scenes across the country to track down leads.

“A lot of the time, when you’re dealing with organized crime or gangs, then it would point to a certain group of individuals that we’re looking for, it may even point to a situation where it is the same individual,” DLE director Mike Lambert said.

According to Jonathan Blais of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, there are more than 400 NIBIN sites across the country.

“The NIBIN program has been around since the mid-’90s and it has solved thousands and thousands of cases across the country and the world,” Blais said.

Before NIBIN, police departments in Hawaii had to send ballistic evidence to the mainland for forensic analysis.

“We’re in line with everybody else, every other law enforcement agency, but now, with the ability to have it tested here, we can get a profile or a match within hours, which is a game-changer,” Maeda said.

Federal law enforcement partners helped cover the $250,000 cost for the Suzanne O NIBIN, which is online and working on about a half-dozen cases, according to Lambert.