Inside the West Virginia facility that helps Minnesota agencies trace gun crimes

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — When it comes to solving gun crimes, knowing where the weapon originated from can make a big difference.   

A trace of the guns used by a felon to kill three first responders in Burnsville earlier this year led investigators to that man’s girlfriend. WCCO now knows that police were at a nearby gun store roughly two hours after the deadly shooting. It’s where the girlfriend bought one of the guns used in the ambush.

There is only one place in the world where traces like that are done. It’s in Martinsburg, West Virginia, at the ATF National Tracing Center.

When a gun crime happens in Minnesota the ATF National Tracing Center is watching. 

“That firearm can be traced down to the original purchaser of that gun. That’s what we aim to do here,” Neil Troppman, who runs the tracing center, said. “We get upwards of 1,700 to 1,800 requests per day on any given day.”

Last year, the center received 645,000 requests. Most are what’s called “routine.”

“Our goal is seven days. And so right now, we’re a little bit above that, just because of the sheer volume of work that we’re that we’re handling,” Troppman said.

However, some agencies report waiting weeks or months for the routine trace information. Other traces are urgent, like a mass shooting. Those make up about 1% of requests. The target turnaround time is 48 hours, with an internal goal of 24.

“Most of the time, we get those traces done within hours or minutes to get that information back to the requesting agency,” Troppman said.

Troppman gave WCCO a tour of the center. What immediately stood out were the stacks of boxes.

“We have deliveries coming in throughout the day,” Troppman said.

There’s no searchable database of serial numbers or gun owners, as it’s prohibited by law. The form buyers fill out is kept by the store. When it goes out of business those documents are shipped to the center.

“Right now, we’re sitting on a workload of about 30,000 boxes of records that we’re, that are waiting to be processed,” Troppman said.

There’s a backlog of 12 to 18 months. Troppman explained what happens when a trace comes in for one of the documents.

“A tracer is going to have to locate this, this set of boxes on the floor, figure out where they are, and then come and search them by hand to find the floor. It’s a much slower process,” Troppman said.

More than half of the trace requests involve a store that is out of business. Contractors work to open boxes and there’s document prep. It a full-time job to remove staples and put the paperwork in chronological order by transaction date. Next, it’s on to scanning.

“We have an output of about 250,000 scans per day. The issue is, we’re getting more than 250,000 pieces of paper per day on average,” Troppman explained.

Records are still not searchable. Contractors manually look through scanned documents instead of paper. But the scans allow the center to destroy the documents.

“We had over 10,000 boxes here in the building, and it was becoming a safety issue. The floors were buckling,” Troppman said.

The boxes were moved to shipping containers. That came with its own set of issues. They currently fill two floors of a building a few minutes away.

If the gun dealer is still in business, it starts with a call to the manufacturer, to the distributor and then the retailer. Shops have 24 hours to respond.

“We are 100% dependent on the record-keeping of those dealers,” Troppman said.

Troppman showed WCCO examples. About 19% of the time there are incomplete or damaged records or a non-responsive dealer. And the trace hits a dead-end. Why does all of this matter?

“Every trace could be critical. Every trace could be that piece of information that breaks the case,” Troppman said.

The ATF projects a record-high 670,000 trace requests this year.

Watch Tuesday at 6 p.m. to see what Minneapolis and St. Paul police do with the information they get from a trace and how it can help or hurt an investigation.

Jennifer Mayerle

Jennifer Mayerle happily returned to Minnesota and WCCO, where she began her career as an intern. The Emmy and Edward R. Murrow award-winning journalist joined WCCO as a reporter in May 2014. She also anchors “WCCO Saturday Morning” from 8-9 a.m.