• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • The Magazine
  • Events
  • Partners
  • Products
  • Contact
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Advertise
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Subscribe
American Police Beat

American Police Beat Magazine

Law Enforcement Publication

  • Home
  • Leadership
    • Liability — not always a showstopper!
      A candid chat with law enforcement Explorer scouts
      Do you know your emotional intelligence?
      Addressing racism in the workplace
      Supervisory actions: Deliberate style or weak skills?
  • Topics
    • Leadership
      • Liability — not always a showstopper!
        A candid chat with law enforcement Explorer scouts
        Do you know your emotional intelligence?
        Addressing racism in the workplace
        Supervisory actions: Deliberate style or weak skills?
    • Editor’s Picks
      • Police humor only a cop would understand
        Legacy never dies
        Mentorship: Ensuring future success
        Pink patches, powerful impact
        The future is here
    • On the Job
      • Legacy never dies
        Into the abyss
        A winding road
        Law enforcement responds to tragic Texas flooding
        I brought home a dog
    • Labor
      • Differentiation in police recruitment
        Building positive media relations
        LEO labor and community outreach — make the haters scoff
        Racing with a purpose
        Dallas Police Department drops college requirement for police...
    • Tech
      • Cutting-edge police technology
        One step closer
        New Jersey school district first to adopt AI gun detection and...
        Hawaii police harness virtual reality technology to train, secure and...
        The future is here
    • Training
      • Mentorship: Ensuring future success
        Unlocking innovation
        Training dipshittery
        Police Academy 20
        Using critical thinking to crack the case
    • Policy
      • Consolidation in action
        California lawmakers push mask ban for officers, raising safety...
        Proactive policing: What it is and how to do it
        California makes police misconduct records publicly available
        A bold idea for reducing homelessness in America
    • Health/Wellness
      • Pink patches, powerful impact
        Time and distance
        Meditation is hard because it’s not what you think
        Life off the clock
        Self-help for anxiety
    • Community
      • Community engagement: What is it moving forward?
        Contradictory crossroads
        Back-to-school season brings out police support nationwide
        A bold idea for reducing homelessness in America
        Operation Brain Freeze keeps community cool
    • Offbeat
      • Police humor only a cop would understand
        Not eggzactly a perfect heist
        Pizza … with a side of alligator?
        Wisconsin man charged with impersonating Border Patrol agent twice in...
        Only in California?
    • We Remember
      • York County ambush leaves three officers dead, others critically...
        Honoring the Fallen Heroes of 9/11
        Team Romeo
        National Police Week 2025
        Honoring Fallen Heroes
    • HOT Mail
      • The War on Cops Continues Unabated
  • On the Job
    • Legacy never dies
      Into the abyss
      A winding road
      Law enforcement responds to tragic Texas flooding
      I brought home a dog
  • Labor
    • Differentiation in police recruitment
      Building positive media relations
      LEO labor and community outreach — make the haters scoff
      Racing with a purpose
      Dallas Police Department drops college requirement for police...
  • Tech
    • Cutting-edge police technology
      One step closer
      New Jersey school district first to adopt AI gun detection and...
      Hawaii police harness virtual reality technology to train, secure and...
      The future is here
  • Training
    • Mentorship: Ensuring future success
      Unlocking innovation
      Training dipshittery
      Police Academy 20
      Using critical thinking to crack the case
  • Policy
    • Consolidation in action
      California lawmakers push mask ban for officers, raising safety...
      Proactive policing: What it is and how to do it
      California makes police misconduct records publicly available
      A bold idea for reducing homelessness in America
  • Health/Wellness
    • Pink patches, powerful impact
      Time and distance
      Meditation is hard because it’s not what you think
      Life off the clock
      Self-help for anxiety
  • Community
    • Community engagement: What is it moving forward?
      Contradictory crossroads
      Back-to-school season brings out police support nationwide
      A bold idea for reducing homelessness in America
      Operation Brain Freeze keeps community cool
  • Offbeat
    • Police humor only a cop would understand
      Not eggzactly a perfect heist
      Pizza … with a side of alligator?
      Wisconsin man charged with impersonating Border Patrol agent twice in...
      Only in California?
  • We Remember
    • York County ambush leaves three officers dead, others critically...
      Honoring the Fallen Heroes of 9/11
      Team Romeo
      National Police Week 2025
      Honoring Fallen Heroes
  • HOT Mail
    • The War on Cops Continues Unabated
  • About
  • The Magazine
  • Events
  • Partners
  • Products
  • Contact
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
Search

Tech

Florida sheriff’s office deploys cutting-edge forensic tool to expedite investigations

APB Team Published March 6, 2025 @ 6:00 am PST

iStock.com/ra-photos

Florida’s Volusia County Sheriff’s Office (VCSO) is the first law enforcement agency in the nation to implement ClearCase, a groundbreaking forensic device designed to accelerate the investigation of gun-related crimes.

“We have a sheriff who made a commitment many years ago that we will try every tool that’s out there that’s legally available to us to stop violent crime,” VCSO Deputy Chief Brian Henderson told FOX35. “This is like DNA for a gun.”

The initiative, made possible through a partnership between LeadsOnline and VCSO, enables investigators to document and analyze shell casings at crime scenes with unprecedented speed and accuracy. Using only a cell phone, officers can photograph and record details about shell casings, including their location and quantity. This data is then uploaded to a national firearm database, allowing law enforcement agencies across the country to collaborate on linked cases.

If a shooting occurs in Daytona Beach, investigators say they could quickly determine whether the shell casings match those from a crime scene in another state, such as Georgia.

“Before, when we had the NIBIN [National Integrated Ballistic Identification Network] machine, our deputies would respond to a drive-by shooting, and that would be all over the ground,” Henderson says. “What we would have to do is collect these shell casings and send them to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which serves the entire Central Florida region.”

Henderson adds that this process occasionally caused in a year-long backlog to receive data.

“We have a 100% homicide clearance rate,” he explains. “We have an 80% violent crime clearance rate from 2024. If you look across the country, the average clearance rate is about 44%.”

Once photographed, the casings are labeled and placed into the ClearCase machine, which sorts and analyzes them. The shell casings date could also help solve older cases.

“We’ve had that happen where we recover a gun, a felon possession of a firearm, we bring it in, test fire it and, sure enough, that gun was linked to a homicide from five or six years ago,” Henderson says. “It takes us from having no leads at all to having some pretty important leads.”

Categories: Tech Tags: crime solving, Florida, Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, gun crime, forensic investigation, ClearCase, shell casing analysis, law enforcement technology

Primary Sidebar

Recent Articles

  • National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund Announces September 2025 Officers of the Month
  • Community engagement: What is it moving forward?
  • Liability — not always a showstopper!
  • Police humor only a cop would understand
  • Contradictory crossroads
  • Cutting-edge police technology
  • Legacy never dies
  • One step closer
  • Mentorship: Ensuring future success
  • Differentiation in police recruitment

Footer

Our Mission
To serve as a trusted voice of the nation’s law enforcement community, providing informative, entertaining and inspiring content on interesting and engaging topics affecting peace officers today.

Contact us: info@apbweb.com | (800) 234-0056.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Categories

  • Editor’s Picks
  • On the Job
  • Labor
  • Tech
  • Training
  • Policy
  • Health/Wellness
  • Community
  • Offbeat
  • We Remember
  • Jobs and Careers
  • Events

Editor’s Picks

Police humor only a cop would understand

Police humor only a cop would understand

October 25, 2025

Legacy never dies

Legacy never dies

October 22, 2025

Mentorship: Ensuring future success

Mentorship: Ensuring future success

October 20, 2025

Pink patches, powerful impact

Pink patches, powerful impact

October 11, 2025

Policies | Consent Preferences | Copyright © 2025 APB Media, LLC | Website design, development and maintenance by 911MEDIA

Open

Subscribe

Close

Receive the latest news and updates from American Police Beat directly to your inbox!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.