Maryland State Police Sued

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 5, 2001
CONTACT: Jim Purtilo, 301 890 7122 (msg/fax)

STATE POLICE SUED FOR STONEWALLING ACCESS TO
PUBLIC INFORMATION ON BALLISTIC FINGERPRINTS

James Purtilo, editor and publisher of Tripwire newsletter, today in Rockville filed suit against Maryland State Police Superintendent David Mitchell for MSP's failure to provide access to public documents as required by state law.

At issue is the quality of information used in MSP's new ballistic fingerprinting. Last year's highly-controversial new measure requires a cartridge case fired out of each handgun sold to be given to police for inclusion in a forensic database. Presumably this will enable investigators to form new leads by matching crime scene evidence against cases collected in the mass screening of all guns.

While researching this technology for an article, Purtilo discovered an acute lack of scholarly material to support the technique, calling into question its use as an investigative tool. "How often do cases fired from different guns look alike?" asks Purtilo. "Police need to know now that crime gun evidence is mixed in with data collected on all non-crime handguns. If too many cartridge cases look alike, courts will need to be wary of any investigation built on an alleged match."

Purtilo filed a Public Information Act (PIA) request to learn what objective basis MSP has for use of its forensic database. PIA's one month deadline for providing documents expired last week, extending MSP's string of failures in handling PIA requests. "It's a sad day when private citizens must sue to get public officials to obey the law. There may be perfectly good answers to the questions we ask, but Mitchell's stonewall only casts doubt on the real goal of ballistic fingerprinting."

Legislation to repeal the ballistic fingerprinting mandate (HB 185) is proposed in Annapolis. "Apparently MSP doesn't want our readers - many of them members of the General Assembly - to have solid information when the bill is considered."