Violent Crime Reduction Initiative

The City of Elizabeth City and the Elizabeth City Police Department propose the Violent Crime Reduction Initiative (VCRI), which shall establish the ECPD as a Regional Ballistic Processing Center (RBPC) for the benefit of all law enforcement agencies in Eastern North Carolina and shall pilot other innovative new technologies to enhance law enforcement investigations. The VCRI consists of four project elements and their reasonable and necessary costs, including: establishment of an RBPC through purchase and installation of an Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS, also known as NIBIN); purchase and deployment of Acoustic Threat Detection units in troubled areas; purchase and deployment of an Automated Fingerprint Identification System for accelerated identification of fingerprints and palm prints; and purchase and deployment of a mobile device forensics/extraction unit. These technologies will eliminate prolonged delays in gathering and processing evidence; these delays may greatly impede or even halt investigations and make it harder to bring dangerous persons to justice. These technologies will also have major benefits to our neighboring, rural law enforcement agencies by timely processing of ballistic evidence, supporting their own cases and fostering cross-jurisdictional investigations, and by piloting other innovative investigative tools that could assist them. The VCRI will directly benefit the entire City of Elizabeth City and its approximate population of 19,000 by facilitating investigation of potentially violent crimes, and will also benefit surrounding law enforcement agencies, including seven local departments/offices who have strongly endorsed our proposal.