For generations, the detective’s “hunch” has been romanticized as the engine of crime-solving. But today, instinct alone can’t keep up with the pace, volume, and mobility of gun violence.
The truth is simpler, and more powerful.
Every fired bullet. Every cartridge case. Every scrap of brass tells a story.[1]
And when agencies listen to that story through modern ballistic analysis and connected data systems, cases once thought unsolvable suddenly break open. Killers are identified. Patterns emerge. Violence is disrupted. Communities get answers.
The power isn’t in a gut feeling. It’s in the evidence. And it always has been.
Criminals Still Think “It’s Just Some Brass.” It Never Is.
The murder case in New Haven, Connecticut, we have discussed before proves the point.
In 1980, after a cooperating witness was executed inside his garage, detectives found no eyewitnesses, only bullets lodged in the walls and expended cartridge cases scattered on the floor.
The killers believed the evidence meant nothing. One conspirator even bragged:
“The cops got nothin’…all they got is some brass on the floor.”
He was wrong.
Examiners used that “nothing” to identify the exact make and model of the murder weapon, an RPB Industries SM-10, a .45 ACP pistol with a barrel design so new that only a few thousand existed. That single technical detail gave detectives a targeted strategy: identify every SM-10 sold in Connecticut.
Three guns. One dealer. One trail leading straight to the offenders.
This is the modern investigative paradigm: When agencies treat every cartridge case as actionable intelligence, “brass on the floor” becomes a roadmap to the truth.
Data Beats the Detective’s Hunch, Every Time
The myth of the hunch says experience can outthink complexity. But decades of research prove otherwise.
Doreen Hudson, Assistant Director of the Los Angeles Police Crime Lab, tested what happens when firearm examiners work from detective intuition versus data-first technology.
The results were stark:
- Hunch-driven submissions: Only ~30% resulted in useful, case-advancing information.
- Technology-driven IBIS searches: Positive information jumped to 70%, then climbed to 80% as processes improved.
This wasn’t a marginal improvement. It was a complete inversion of investigative effectiveness.
A detective’s instincts are invaluable on the street. But when it comes to connecting guns to crimes, and crimes to each other, systematic, technology-driven searching is faster, more accurate, and dramatically more productive.
Data doesn’t guess.
Data doesn’t forget.
Data doesn’t get tired.
The Murder Weapon Could Be Sitting in the Next Town Over
One of the biggest threats to justice isn’t sophistication, it’s silence between jurisdictions.
The Hazel Love murder case in Alabama shows how dangerous those gaps can be.
- 1996: Hazel Love, age 68, is murdered. Recovered cartridge cases are entered into NIBIN.
- 2000: Police in the next town seize the murder weapon from a felon. It sits in a property room for two years.
- 2002: When the gun is finally checked against NIBIN, an immediate hit links it back to the unsolved homicide.
The evidence to solve the case existed the entire time, just miles away, but without networked data, it was invisible.
This is why the guiding principle today is clear:
The evidence of one must be the evidence of all.
When agencies connect their data, arbitrary borders stop shielding violent offenders from accountability.
One Cartridge Can Clear a Case, Convict a Criminal, and Calm a Concerned Community
Sometimes the smallest piece of evidence is the most powerful tool in the room.
During the Boston Gun Project in the 1990s, police arrested gang member Freddie Cardoza with one round of ammunition. To him, it was nothing. To a multi-agency task force, it was everything.
Because of his violent criminal history, possession of a single 9mm cartridge triggered federal armed career criminal provisions. Cardoza was sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison.
But the real impact wasn’t the sentence, it was the deterrence.
When police later met with at-risk gang members, they held up Cardoza’s poster.
“One bullet,” an officer said.
Silence. Message received.
Gun crime reduction isn’t only about catching the trigger-pullers. It’s about showing the entire ecosystem that law enforcement will use every lawful tool to stop the violence.
Crime Is Global. Evidence Must Be Too.
The networks connecting shooters today are no longer local. They’re national, and increasingly international.
A case linking Spain and Portugal drove home just how critical global data-sharing has become.
For years, Portuguese authorities hunted a gang tied to 50 crimes, including armed robberies and murder. Ballistic evidence linked nine weapons, but no suspects.
Then, during a routine stop in Madrid, officers found a single cartridge case in a car. Spain entered it into their national system. Later, when Spain and Portugal connected their databases through INTERPOL’s IBIN network, that one cartridge linked directly to the Portuguese murder.
The suspects were identified. The gang was dismantled.
As Chief Inspector Jose Dominguez put it:
“Criminals are crossing from one country to the other without any restrictions. And that’s what we are going to do as well.”
When crime moves without borders, evidence must move without borders too.
Innovation Is the New Superpower in Gun Crime Investigation
Across every example, the New Haven murder, the Hazel Love case, the Boston Gun Project, the Spain-Portugal link, the lesson is the same:
The smallest piece of evidence becomes the biggest investigative lead when agencies leverage data, technology, and connected systems.
Hunches have their place. But they’re no match for a disciplined, evidence-led and intelligence driven investigative strategy powered by:
- Shared networks
- Automated matching
- Standardized workflows
- Data-first processes
- Cross-jurisdictional collaboration
This is more than modernization. It’s a commitment: to victims, to families, and to the communities anxiously waiting for answers.
The detective’s hunch isn’t the hero anymore. It is the evidence and the relentless follow-up.
When the evidence speaks, justice thunders.
[1] Note: The stories and lessons contained in this article are derived directly from The 13 Critical Tasks: An Inside-Out Approach to Solving More Gun Crime, 3rd Edition, 2019, written by Pete Gagliardi. The full text can be found at https://leadsonline.com or purchased from Amazon at: https://a.co/d/bXD4riB
