NCJ Number
208247
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 52 Issue: 11 Dated: November 2004 Pages: 112-114
Date Published
November 2004
Length
3 pages
Annotation
The U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories has developed and patented a portable gunshot residue (GSR) field-test kit that provides police officers with a presumptive test for gunshot residue; accurate results are provided within minutes.
Abstract
The test detects the presence of nitrate residues from gun powder. The new kit not only allows officers immediately to perform GSR testing on multiple suspects, it also can help distinguish a suicide from a homicide and assist in the analysis of crime scenes. Another major advantage of the new kit is that testing results can be preserved for subsequent confirmation by a forensic laboratory with the traditional test using scanning electron microscopy. The kit has been licensed to a private Colorado company, Law Enforcement Technologies, and is being marketed under the name Instant Shooter Identification Kit (ISID-1). It is currently being used by over 200 local, county, State, and Federal law enforcement agencies. The complete ISID-1 kit measures 6.5 x 5.25 x 1.75 inches. To perform the GSR field test, the officer swabs the suspect and then saturates the swab with the reagent. If blue specks appear after 5 minutes (the specks may be brown if the suspect's hands are dirty), the suspect has tested positive for nitrates. The test can detect even trace amounts of nitrates, as small as 700 nanograms. Sandia has performed a comprehensive and controlled laboratory study of the kit's accuracy when it was used by officers in the field. The testing produced 90-percent accuracy regarding false positives and 89-percent accuracy regarding false negatives. This is considered sufficiently accurate for presumptive testing.