Spring 2006 SWGGUN Meeting Summary
SWGGUN recently
met at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police
Department in Las Vegas, Nevada, April 18-20,
2006. Nineteen of the Board Members were present
at the meeting; one additional member was not in
attendance. SWGGUN is pleased to announce our
new ASCLD Representative, Todd Reynolds of the
Indianapolis State Police, past Chair and Board
member of the scientific working group.
Congratulations are in order to Katherine
Richert of the Alabama Department of Forensic
Sciences and Travis Spinder of the Montana
Department of Justice for being elected to the
Board from a pool of extremely qualified firearm
and toolmark examiners working in the
discipline.
Final approval was granted for the adoption of
the “Minimum Qualifications for Experienced
Firearm and Toolmark Examiners” and the “Minimum
Qualifications for Firearm and Toolmark Examiner
Trainees” documents. These documents are
available under the “Guidelines” tab on the
website. The surveys conducted at AFTE two years
ago and from crime laboratories across the
nation were used to construct these documents.
The Trigger Pull committee continues to evaluate
the data collected from the AFTE Conference in
Indianapolis, IN and the data collected from the
research performed by the committee at Quantico
the past few years. A draft has been generated
for review by the Board. The research undertaken
during this project continues to be organized
and the data integrated into a usable format for
publication.
An ISO Transition committee is working on a
draft document to assist examiners in
identifying areas that the firearm and toolmark
examiner community may want to consider when
attempting to achieve ISO 17025 accreditation.
This committee continues to seek any input from
all firearm and toolmark examiners within the
discipline that may be considering ISO
accreditation.
The scientific working group has compiled a
substantial amount of information on evidence
admissibility and placed it in one location in
an attempt to assist examiners when preparing
for court or evidence admissibility challenges.
Please review the information compiled under the
“Resources” tab.
A survey will be circulated within the next few
months asking for your input on the methods you
employ for microscopic evaluation. Please be on
the lookout for this survey and if you have not
received one within the next few months feel
free to contact any of the Board directly.
Ongoing projects that are being addressed by
SWGGUN are:
- Trigger
Pull Evaluation of methods and equipment
used.
- ISO
Transition-defining the standards.
- Daubert
Challenges in the field of Firearm and
Toolmark Identification.
- SWGGUN
Survey regarding general acceptance.
These
committees are working to develop a product that
can be posted on the SWGGUN website for review
and comments from the forensic community. SWGGUN
continues to operate its own website at
www.swggun.org and solicits valuable input from
the discipline through a number of different
mechanisms during the development stages of the
guidelines in which we produce. These
guidelines/documents are then posted on the
website for your review and we encourage peer
review of these materials. Feel free to contact
a Board Member with your comments/concerns or
visit us at the “Feedback Forum” tab above.
Thank you for allowing us to serve you. Board
member information can be found under the
“Members” tab. We look forward to hearing from
you and encourage your continued participation
in these ongoing projects that ultimately affect
our work product.
Thomas L.G. Price –Chair, SWGGUN
