Gunshot residue testing has fallen out of fashion in law enforcement. But the city of Phoenix still practices it.
Phoenix Crime Lab Administrator Benjamin Swanholm said Phoenix is the only lab in Arizona still testing for it and one of few in the country. There are concerns over both its feasibility and its effectiveness, but Swanholm said it is still a useful tool in Phoenix Police’s tool belt.
“We’ve worked with our investigative teams in the detective bureaus, and they have found that this information is helpful and useful for those investigations,” Swanholm told the Phoenix Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee on March 4. “So we want to continue to provide that service to assist those investigations.”
