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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – State leaders are combining local and federal resources in hopes of tackling gun violence in our state. It involves linking law enforcement to a national network.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, Attorney General Raúl Torrez and Doña Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart announced they’re adding new “NIBIN” machines across the state. It comes as we continue to see a rise in gun violence.

“We, according to the latest UCR reports, are the second most dangerous state in the United States. And according to that same data, the unsolved rate of violent crime is nearly 75%,” said Torrez. 

NIBIN stands for National Integrated Ballistic Information Network. It comes from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, and Firearms.

“These are the machines that analyze shell casings and really are able to quantify the geometric relationship between a particular casing and a particular firearm,” Heinrich said.

Heinrich says New Mexico currently has three of these machines: two in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe.

“I was able to work through the appropriations process to get funding this year for a little over $1,000,000 to put NIBIN machines in Farmington and Gallup and Las Cruces and Roswell. Rather than having law enforcement officers driving from the very ends of the state to Santa Fe and Albuquerque, where the only machines exist right now,” said Heinrich. 

As the machines are set up in their new cities, the attorney general’s Crime Gun Intelligence Center will train officers on how to use them. The data collected can be shared across county and city lines.

“Those casings can then be analyzed and traced back to networks that we know not only traffic in firearms, but trade firearms for narcotics or use firearms in a variety of different violent crimes, not just in the metro area but across jurisdictional boundaries,” Torrez said.  

Analysts will then use that information to help agencies make arrests. Stewart believes the machines are game changers.

“It connects this round to a specific weapon, a specific weapon. How invaluable is that? It’s an incredible tool in our arsenal. We need to start stepping up to technology. We need to embrace that which can make policing more efficient, more scientific, more unarguable in a sense, with prosecutions,” said Stewart. 

ATF is going to help set up the machines. Once they’re installed, communities across the state will have access to them.

Two women were found dead and a 5-year-old girl critically injured at a park near Clovis, New Mexico, authorities said Sunday. Meanwhile, the FBI found an abducted 10-month-old girl, who’s the daughter of one of the victims, reports CNN, and a suspect is in custody. The FBI didn’t disclose the condition of the infant, or the identity of the suspect, per CNN. Police have identified the dead women as Samantha Cisneros and Taryn Allen, both 23 years old and from Texico, New Mexico, reports the AP. They said at least one of the women was fatally shot. The 5-year-old girl was critically injured with a gunshot wound. New Mexico State Police issued an Amber Alert late Friday for the infant.

Cisneros was the mother of both children, and the fathers of the girls were cooperating with investigators and not believed to be suspects, according to police. The Eastern New Mexico News reports that the women were found at Ned Houk Park about 5 miles north of Clovis with their purses and belongings near the bodies, state police said. A car belonging to one of the women also was found at the scene. The FBI and Clovis police are asking the public to come forward with any tips or leads. A GoFundMe page has been set up by the family of Cisneros.

(More New Mexico stories.)