Busted... with an Assist from RISC, NICS, and NCIC
March 19, 2012
Houston (Texas) Police Department: On the night of November 13, 2011, officers with the Houston Police Department were conducting a traffic stop when they noticed a man riding a bicycle without proper headlight equipment. The officers stopped the man on the bicycle and questioned him. The man had gang-related tattoos on his face and body and did not have proper identification. The officers scanned the man’s fingerprints using a Mobile Identification device and submitted his fingerprints to the FBI’s Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC). Within two minutes, the RISC returned a hit indicating the man had felony warrants from Wichita Falls, Texas, and Malheur County, Oregon. He was wanted for assault in Texas and for parole violation, assault, failure to appear, felony firearm possessions, and escape in Oregon.
Habersham County (Georgia) Sheriff’s Office: On December 19, 2011, a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) examiner processed a transaction for an individual attempting to redeem a handgun purchase from a Federal Firearm Licensee (FFL) in Cornelia, Georgia. The NICS examiner identified an active warrant from the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The warrant further specified that the individual should be held, if possible, since the sheriff’s office would extradite nationwide. The NICS examiner denied the transaction and provided this information to the wanting agency in order to apprehend the subject.
Montgomery County (Maryland) Police Department: The Montgomery County Police Department recently contacted the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Operations Group regarding a bank robbery investigation. Multiple suspects were seen leaving the scene of a bank robbery in a silver Dodge Stratus. The Operations Group ran an off-line search looking for all stolen Dodge Stratus vehicles entered in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. Searching within NCIC’s active records, purged records, and the transactions log for inquiries made since 1990, the off-line search identified the vehicle used in the bank robbery and 9 additional bank robberies. Five people were identified and arrested, and the cases of all 10 bank robberies were closed by arrest.
