COLUMBUS – Authorities used the new ShotSpotter technology installed in Columbus earlier this year to a cache of guns, drugs and cash at the West Side home of a convicted felon.
Agents from the Columbus field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives last Thursday arrested Joshua Touvell on a federal weapons warrant and Columbus SWAT officers executed a search warrant at his home at 653 Dexter Avenue, on the Hilltop, where they confiscated nine firearms, ammunition; 1,254 grams of methamphetamine, 633 grams of black tar heroin, numerous prescription pills, and bulk U.S currency, police spokeswoman Denise Alex-Bouzounis said.
The case originated from ShotSpotter technology and associations with data in the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, a national database maintained by the ATF of digital images of spent bullets and cartridge cases that were found at crime scenes or test-fired from confiscated weapons, Alex-Bouzounis said.
The NIBIN association was on May 11, when Touvell, 26, was arrested with a gun linked to an earlier weapons discharge within Columbus city limits, Alex-Bouzounis said.
Touvell is facing federal charges are being held by the United States Marshal’s Service pending an ongoing investigation.
Columbus police have taken 25,000 guns off city streets in the last decade, according to a report in The Columbus Dispatch.