TWO LOCAL police ballistics experts will be travelling to Europe soon to undergo further training, courtesy of Scotland Yard in England, Police Commissioner Francis Forbes said on Friday.
Speaking at a press conference at the Wexford Court Hotel in Montego Bay, the Commissioner said that only the dates and times for the training programme were left to be finalised before the officers were sent off.
Mr. Forbes did not elaborate on the training the police experts were expected to undertake at Scotland Yard, but he did say the computerised ballistics examination equipment that the police used for the testing of firearms has not been working.
The piece of equipment, which was purchased in the United States for US$350,000, was affected by the 'Millennium Bug', and has been out of service since the turn of the century, he said.
With police statistics showing an increase in shootings in 2002 over 2001, Commissioner Forbes emphasised the need for the computerised equipment at this time. He said the equipment called 'Drug Fire' was able to create a computerised database of all spent shells recovered, and could check and accurately match spent shells within minutes.
He explained that this enabled the police to trace the use of particular firearms. With the equipment out of service, the police now had to go through the identification and cross-matching of spent shells manually, and although this made the process no less accurate, it was more tedious.
"I think we now have to look toward getting a similar piece of equipment as quickly as we can, because that's the only way we are going to be able to cope with the number of crime scenes where guns are used," the Commissioner said.
