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Inside look at how Allegheny County investigators link guns to crimes in which they were used

PITTSBURGH — Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives statistics show Pittsburgh has one of the largest increases of guns hitting the streets than any other city in the northeast, and the same statistics show the guns used get passed from person to person and are used in multiple crimes.

Technology is helping investigators link those crimes to the weapons. With each bullet fired, there is evidence left behind because of unique marks etched into the bullet shell casing by the gun. It's that evidence that allowed Allegheny County ballistics technician Jason Very to determine that a .40 Glock was used by three different people to commit two separate crimes.

"We will get a gun that is used in 10 other crimes - two homicides, three homicides, five assaults. That's not uncommon at all," said Very.

In 2000, a man named Bafata Sullivan legally purchased a .40 Glock semi-automatic gun. In 2007, Sullivan was convicted of a felony and should have surrendered his firearm, but he didn't. Instead, four years later in April 2011, the gun was used to murder 19-year-old Stephon Green in Pittsburgh's Hill District, police said.

Two months later, in June 2011, the gun resurfaced once more, in the hands of a man named Ernest Harris. Harris was in Aces and Deuces bar, on Fifth Avenue, when witnesses saw him waving a gun around, police said. He was arrested, and the gun in Harris' possession was taken into evidence.

Jason Very tested the gun in the Allegheny County ballistics lab and determined the same gun that had been in the bar was the one used to murder Stephon Green, and it was the same gun that was purchased and registered to Bafata Sullivan.

Detectives filed charges against Calvin Kane in the murder of Stephon Green and firearms charges against Ernest Harris. Bafata Sullivan was also facing gun charges but died before his case could go to trial.