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Holly Saunders, crime scene investigator, pulls back the slide to chamber a round she will shoot into a tank the Charleston Police Department uses to collect ballistic forensics on firearms in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
Holly Saunders, a crime scene investigator, picks up a Glock handgun that was previously seized to load a round and demonstrate the tank the Charleston Police Department uses for ballistic testing in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
Holly Saunders, a crime scene investigator, motions toward scanned images of the rear of a bullet casing that was shot from the same Glock handgun used as a demonstration in the lab, to show the similar markings left by the individual gun in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
Holly Saunders, a crime scene investigator, explains the process she works through to match bullet casings with the firearm that fired them using forensic information in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
A tank filled with water to catch fired bullets rests open while Charleston Police Department officers walk through its use in gathering ballistic forensics in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
Sgt. Elisabeth Wolfsen picks out and demonstrates the differences in bullets and their casings from crime scenes in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
Holly Saunders, a crime scene investigator, loads a round into the magazine of a Glock handgun she will use to demonstrate a tank the Charleston Police Department uses to collect ballistic information, in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
Holly Saunders, crime scene investigator, pulls back the slide to chamber a round she will shoot into a tank the Charleston Police Department uses to collect ballistic forensics on firearms in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
Blood dripped down the boy’s right arm and soaked through his sweatshirt.
The 14-year-old was in agony. He’d been hanging out with his brother and four of their friends in downtown Charleston’s Gadsden Green neighborhood when gunfire erupted, sending them scrambling in different directions, police reports say. His first instinct was to run home, but he tripped and fell, scraping his knee.
His brother dove beneath a nearby parked car, using its steel frame as a shield for nearly three minutes amid the “pop, pop, pop.”
Their mother was inside the house when she heard about 20 gunshots sound out. It was late — around 9 p.m. the day before New Year’s Eve. She opened the front door and saw her 14-year-old running toward it, holding his arm.
Holly Saunders, a crime scene investigator, picks up a Glock handgun that was previously seized to load a round and demonstrate the tank the Charleston Police Department uses for ballistic testing in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
The woman hurriedly tugged off his sweatshirt. Beneath it, she found a gunshot wound, gaping and round.
It was Dec. 30, 2019. A neighbor rushed the boy and his mother to a hospital as Charleston police officers fanned out across the housing project in search of a stray shell casing, bullet or, even better, a firearm.
Officers didn’t know it yet, but the shooting in Gadsden Green wasn’t the first place they had encountered this gun. The Glock 21 had been busy, firing at least four times in only a few months. The boy was its second victim.
Police later determined it had been purchased on the black market, one of the most common ways for a gun to end up in the hands of bad actors, research suggests.
The weapon is one of countless others just like it, used by criminals to wreak havoc on communities as it hopscotches across multiple crime scenes. Sometimes the guns pass among shooters, confounding law enforcement as they race to link tragedies and make arrests.
Officers carefully collect the metal fragments that dot these scenes to later be tested in forensic labs. The ballistic evidence helps secure convictions.
Advances in forensic technology have leveled the playing field for police departments, allowing authorities to quickly identify unique characteristics tying these weapons to specific crimes. And while finding a single gun that's been fired at different scenes is uncommon, it amounts to investigative gold, leading officers closer to the triggermen.
Holly Saunders, a crime scene investigator, motions toward scanned images of the rear of a bullet casing that was shot from the same Glock handgun used as a demonstration in the lab, to show the similar markings left by the individual gun in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
The Glock 21 is a semi-automatic pistol chambered for the .45-caliber cartridge. Its bullets travel lightning- fast, bursting from the barrel at roughly 830 feet per second.
The gun, weighing just 2 pounds when fully loaded, is ubiquitous among law enforcement officers and military personnel. Its bullets prove a particularly effective opponent against human targets, thanks to a heavy mass and large diameter. The rounds deeply puncture tissue, creating a more substantial wound cavity. They spill blood and shatter bone.
Most guns eject shell casings after they’re fired. Those casings are uniquely dinged, dented and scuffed by the weapon’s firing mechanism, leaving behind minute patterns that a trained eye can read like mechanical DNA. Based on the patterns, authorities can accurately link spent casings to the weapons that fired them.
The Charleston Police Department test-fires almost every gun collected in a shooting, said Forensic Services Director Judy Gordon. Crime scene technicians also test every spent cartridge casing and enter the findings into a ballistics database managed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Holly Saunders, a crime scene investigator, explains the process she works through to match bullet casings with the firearm that fired them using forensic information in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN, contains images of recovered pieces of ballistics evidence. Crime scene techs use the database to link shell casings to others collected from different shootings, or match casings to a specific gun.
The Police Department has submitted 375 NIBIN entries since Jan. 1, Gordon said, about a fourth of which were for cartridge casings. The entries have generated 83 leads so far.
Gordon estimated that about 1 in 5 of the recovered guns are ultimately connected to multiple shootings.
The department became certified in late 2021 to test-fire and analyze its recovered weapons using the federal software. Before, officers would send weapons to be tested at the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, Gordon said.
This comprehensive strategy for collecting and entering evidence is one of the most important tools in addressing gun violence, she said. The database provides objective evidence and a way for officers to link crimes they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
A tank filled with water to catch fired bullets rests open while Charleston Police Department officers walk through its use in gathering ballistic forensics in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
Crime scene investigator Holly Saunders spends a lot of time in the Police Department’s forensics lab. As one of two technicians trained to use the federal databases, she is responsible for test-firing weapons recovered from crime scenes.
Recovered guns are brought to the lab to be photographed and tested for fingerprints. The weapon will then go to Saunders, who will pull on gloves before standing at the front of a silver tank filled with a vat of water. She’ll point the gun into a tube and fire.
Saunders doesn’t care about the bullet propelling into the water. She’s interested only in what it leaves behind: a shell casing that drops into the net below. Saunders will carry the casing into her office, where a machine will take magnified photos of the shell, enlarging it on computer monitors that reveal each of its unique markings.
An algorithm searches the casing’s granularities and generates a list of potential matches from crime scenes across the country. Saunders will compare each image to her original shell, scouring them for marks of the same shape and location.
Finding a successful match is a challenge, but it provides police officers with hard evidence and actionable intelligence.
Figure out where a gun has been, and you can guess where it’s going.
Charleston police officers know the Glock 21 was tied to at least three other crimes before the 14-year-old boy was shot in Gadsden Green.
Its casings first showed up at a crime scene Oct. 9, 2019, according to police reports. Several people called 911 to report a shooting at an apartment complex off Hazelwood Drive in West Ashley.
Officers arrived and saw a crowd had formed near a staircase of one of the buildings. They found a young man bleeding on the ground, his acid-washed jeans stuck to his legs and splattered with dark red.
The 19-year-old victim had suffered a single gunshot wound to his lower back. Authorities held back the crowd and applied pressure to the man’s injury as they waited for paramedics.
Other officers broke off to canvass the area for witnesses, shell casings and recently fired weapons. They used Shadow, one of their police dogs, who trotted in a grid-like pattern between a few of the apartment buildings. The dog found one casing which helped officers locate several more nearby.
Officers collected casings in a parking lot and up the stairs leading to one apartment unit. They found blood spots, unfired rounds and at least a dozen bullet holes littering several units.
Sgt. Elisabeth Wolfsen picks out and demonstrates the differences in bullets and their casings from crime scenes in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
One bullet whizzed through the right side of a door frame, crossing the living room and passing through the back wall of a bedroom before exiting. Another apartment suffered extensive damage. One bullet burst through a kitchen cabinet and into a shower wall where it shot across the bathroom and entered a bedroom.
Police weren’t able to recover these rounds.
The Glock 21 fired twice more in the following months, each time on Symmes Drive near the Forest Park playground. There were no reported injuries in either shooting. Officers combed the quiet residential street, locating spent casings scattered on the pavement and in the grass. The majority were from a .45-caliber gun. Others were fired from a 9 mm pistol and a .40-caliber weapon.
Officers still didn’t find a gun. But they knew the discarded shells could provide clues as to who was responsible.
The 14-year-old boy stayed in the hospital through the night of Dec. 30 to get treatment for his gunshot wound. In the meantime, detectives interviewed witnesses, collected camera footage and chased leads.
The next day, patrol officers located a car parked on Sequoia Street in West Ashley. Inside sat three teens and a Glock 21.
The small, black handgun poked out from the waistband of Zaquan Brown’s pants. Police had by then identified the 19-year-old man as a suspect in the Gadsden Green shooting.
Brown admitted he didn’t have a state permit allowing him to carry a concealed weapon. Officers charged the teen with unlawful carry and placed him under arrest.
In addition to the .45-caliber weapon, officers recovered a .40-caliber handgun, a 9 mm pistol and baggie of marijuana, according to police reports.
One of the passengers, also 19 years old, admitted to having the 9 mm — loaded with 18 rounds and one in the chamber — tucked into the right side of his waistband, reports state. The man, whose charges were later dropped, didn’t have a concealed weapons permit.
He told cops he’d found the 9 mm, but when officers ran it through a federal database, they learned it had been reported stolen nearly 200 miles away in Simpsonville.
Brown, meanwhile, said he'd purchased the Glock 21 on the street.
A 2016 survey of state and federal prison inmates by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the black market was the most common source for firearms used in crimes.
Of the nearly 1.5 million inmates who participated in the written survey, about 1 in 5 of them admitted to possessing a firearm during the offense for which they were serving time.
Of those inmates, around half confessed they’d gotten their weapon off the street or from an underground market. Fewer than 10 percent of the inmates reported stealing the weapon or finding it at the scene of a crime. Seven percent said they’d purchased the gun under their own name from a licensed firearms dealer.
The price of a street gun varies, authorities said. It can depend on how badly the seller wants to rid themselves of the weapon. Sometimes, two parties will strike a deal: narcotics or a new pair of sneakers in exchange for the gun, said Charleston Police Capt. Jason Bruder.
The number of firearms reported stolen from municipalities across Charleston County has remained virtually the same between 2017 and 2021, hovering at an average of 767 guns per year. The vast majority of them are taken from unlocked cars — it’s one of the easier crimes to commit, Bruder said.
Cops rarely catch people in the act of stealing from a car, and most thieves aren’t smashing windows to get inside. Officers know from watching neighbors’ video surveillance that it’s often teenagers, searching late at night for high-value items.
“Walking down the street and pulling on a door handle has almost no risk to getting caught,” Bruder said, “And only reward.”
Further complicating gun thefts — and how authorities investigate them — is the fact that many gun owners don’t keep track of their serial numbers, leaving police officers with no way to locate their missing weapon, or determine whether a recovered weapon was stolen, said North Charleston police Maj. James Hill.
An important part of reducing gun violence is firearms education, and getting the broader community to play an active role in responsible ownership, he said.
Bruder agreed: “It’s crazy that you can lock your (car) doors and stop 90 percent of this.”
Holly Saunders, a crime scene investigator, loads a round into the magazine of a Glock handgun she will use to demonstrate a tank the Charleston Police Department uses to collect ballistic information, in Charleston on May 24, 2022. Henry Taylor/Staff
Local law enforcement officials could not say how often stolen firearms turn up at crime scenes.
Both Bruder and Hill said their departments monitor the number of stolen guns in their jurisdictions, but not the number of stolen guns used in violent crimes. Trying to identify patterns among the data is difficult — just because a rise in gun thefts might mimic a rise in shootings, it doesn’t mean the two are correlated, Bruder said.
For instance, there could simply be more guns in the community.
But authorities have no way of quantifying the number. South Carolinians don’t have to register their firearms, meaning guns can cycle through dozens of owners in countless private sales that are considered legal but require no oversight.
Bennie Mims, ATF’s special agent in charge of the Charlotte field office, also couldn’t attest to whether there are more guns on the street. Crime rates are increasing, but ATF’s strategy has been to focus its investigative power on identifying the trigger pullers, he said.
Even if there was a way to measure the number of guns in a community, Hill said he didn’t think having the data would help him solve gun crimes in North Charleston.
“I just don't know that the amount of guns affects the amount of crime that's committed with guns,” he said.
Still, Bruder and Hill agreed their departments could do a better job of tracking how many guns connected with violent crime were reported as stolen.
If the data showed gun thefts were contributing to violent crime, it would emphasize the importance of safe gun storage, Bruder said.
A crime scene technician would fire the Glock 21 into a barrel just days after Charleston patrol officers found it in the car with Brown. Water inside the tank rippled, reacting to the bullet’s energy.
The shell casing was photographed and the images catalogued. In February 2020, detectives received the results: The Glock 21 was tied to all four unsolved shootings in the city.
Though never lethal, the small weapon zigged and zagged across at least 11 miles in a three-month span, its bullets penetrating human bodies, parked cars and apartment units.
And it was only a single gun — one authorities managed to hunt down and seize.
Officers in Charleston have arrested 139 people on an unlawful firearm carrying charge so far this year, resulting in the confiscation of those weapons, according to police data. They've investigated 86 crimes with shots fired — 30 of them resulted in at least one person being shot. Four of those victims died.
In North Charleston, 82 people were shot between Jan. 1 and June 28, leading to 18 deaths, police data shows. Officers responded to another 153 reports of shots fired with no injuries.
More than 360 guns were seized or recovered at crime scenes during that time. More than 750 shell casings have been entered into federal databases by North Charleston police.
A gun provides authorities with important clues, but it’s not always enough to close a case.
Charges remain pending against Brown in connection with the Gadsden Green shooting that injured the 14-year-old boy. Charleston police officers still have not made arrests in the other three shootings linked to the Glock 21.
Charleston police Sgt. Elisabeth Wolfsen, who helped investigate the Hazelwood Drive shooting, said it's a reminder that ballistic evidence can take police only so far in solving a case. Recovered weapons, bullets and shell casings establish patterns and provide a roadmap, but they don't always put a gun in the hands of a criminal by the time officers track it down.
"At the end of the day, that's all they are. Leads," Wolfsen said.
Investigators have to keep pulling at the yarn bit by bit, hoping to find their shooter before the spool unravels.
Call Jocelyn Grzeszczak at 843-323-9175. Follow her on Twitter at @jocgrz.
Jocelyn Grzeszczak covers crime and public safety in the Charleston area. She previously wrote breaking news and features for Newsweek and The News-Press.
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