New AI tool claims to help police process ballistic evidence in minutes while still at crime scene

Currently, a 24-hour turnaround is considered fast when it comes to processing evidence in gun crimes. But a new AI-powered tool being used by some departments claims to turn a shell casing into an investigative lead in under 24 minutes.

For nearly a century, shell casings have helped investigators connect guns to crimes. The technique dates back to the era of Chicago's infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Lincoln Park, when forensic experts linked Tommy guns to associates of Al Capone through ballistic evidence.

Now a new AI-powered toll is trying to take that same science out of the lab and put it directly into the hands of officers at a crime scene.

"You have this technology from then to now, and the evolution of this process is very interesting," said retired ATF Special Agent Robert Poole.

Poole said the science behind ballistics tracing in 2026 looks remarkably close to how it did in 1929. The real difference is in how quickly investigators can pull the trigger on a lead.  He said by ATF standards, it's generally 24 to 48 hours.

But Poole's team at revelen.ai has created a crime scene scanner that aims to turn that evidence around in minutes, while investigators are still on the scene.

"I could train to you use this in 30 minutes and you would be just as good as I am on it," he said.

And he did. Using a mock crime scene, Poole demonstrated how an officer would recover a cartridge casing and place it directly into a ShotOptix scanner, which connects directly to an iPhone.

"We're taking a whole series of images at an oblique angle. And we take those images, and we stitch them all together using machine learning," he explained.

The AI examines characteristics on the cartridge casing and compares them against others already in the database.

"And many toolmark examiners will tell you this is essentially the same as a fingerprint of that gun that fired that cartridge," said Poole.

Within minutes, the responding officer and receive a notification with results that the casing was or was not likely involved in another crime.

While a toolmark examiner still needs to confirm the findings, the scanner can provide leads on the spot so the investigation can begin immediately.

Poole said one of the reasons he and his partners started the company was because of the impact of gun violence on families, and the desire to get them answers and justice quicker.

Poole said one of the company's first major deployments is in Delaware. CBS News Chicago Investigators spoke to Lewes Police Chief Tom Spell, where the technology is being used, if it's really working.

"It was a no-brainer. We thought, wow, this is really good cutting-edge technology," Spell said.

He said his officers usually get their results back in 10 to 15 minutes.

"If there's a shooting that occurred a week earlier, a day earlier, a couple hours earlier in a neighboring jurisdiction, and we can tie that fired casing to that," Spell said. "It just gives us so much, so many more leads to, to follow."

So, could this AI crime scene scanner become standard issue in squad cars across the country? Only time will tell if departments pull the trigger on adopting it.