I'm trying to sort out how the 4th July shooter was identified and caught so quickly; eight hours, 15 minutes or so after the shooting, in a neighboring state.

Timeline:

10:14 Parade Shooting
1:00 Announcement that a rifle had been recovered and was being traced.
5:12 The name of the shooter (which I will not use) is identified as a person of interest.
6:30 Shooter is arrested at a second possible shooting location in Indiana.

How did this investigation proceed? Are the police, in communication with ATF, able to process a serial number check so quickly that a gun recovered sometime after 10:30 yields a purchaser less than 7 hours later?

Is it reasonable that an APB put out presumably around 5:12 results in a sighting and arrest one hour and 15 minutes later in a different state?

This process seems remarkably efficient to me, and if so, congratulations to the officers and agencies who pulled it off.

The shooter bought his guns between June 2019 and June 2021. It is unclear to me when the recovered rifle was purchased. In any case, the purchases weren't immediately preceding the shooting. Even if he used the last gun purchased, 10 months had passed.

I am assuming that this is possible because this was a newly purchased firearm, and that the records of the manufacturer, the distributor, and the gun store would all be electronic, so a call to the manufacturer by ATF would quickly yield the identity of the distributor, which could then quickly identify the seller, who then would know from their own systems who bought the gun. Am I correct in the assumption that the gun store would have an electronic record in addition to their bound book?

I'm not meaning to sound paranoid here. This analysis starts with a serial number, and a known point of entry, with a very short ownership chain. Assuming the gun store has electronic records in addition to the bound book, to eliminate physical searching for the transaction, this is, I think, a reasonable time frame, even on a holiday.

I imagine things would be much more difficult with a firearm that had multiple owners, even if never purchased and sold privately.

I'd like to hear the thoughts of the professional investigators on this timeline. Please let me know if I have missed anything important here.

Thank you.

A

Not knowing the complete facts of the case and what information they had at the time it is hard to offer any insight without bordering on sounding conspiratorial.

I am NOT LE or a professional investigator, so I'll apologize in advance for stepping in.

From early reports, my understanding is that there was at least one witness, possibly more, that saw the shooter from cover.

In addition, the ladder used by the shooter was left behind after the shooting, which may have had fingerprints on it.

I know for a fact that local security camera footage recorded the shooter, after the shooting, dressed as a woman, with a fairly clear image of his face, albeit somewhat covered by the wig and make up.

I don't know this for a fact, but I'd hazard a guess that the shooter had a smart phone with him, which can be tracked once the owner is identified.

I don't know which specific evidence led to IDing the shooter first, but law enforcement was able to quickly determine what vehicle he was driving, and from there they focused on locating that vehicle.

I do agree with you that LE did a fantastic job of IDing and locating him quickly.

Good point on the phone/location/time issue.

I hadn't thought of that. Of course that could play into the timeline.

Just a guess: Prior to doing this (or just afterward) he shot his mouth off to someone who then snitched him off.

Cell phone location.

It seems investigators can track cell phones after the fact or real time. I seem to remember a case in Philadelphia that was thrown out because the locations were obtained without a warrant.

I think the P.O.S. might have been doing some kind of live feed on his phone during the event. That may have helped LEO.

Also fingerprints on weapon. I don't know if his state does fingerprints when getting firearm card. But his prints may be on file.

I am not an investigator.
Just my 2 cents.

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Urgent traces are classified as those that must be completed within 24 hours. In high profile cases, they will drag people out of bed in multiple locations to get the results within hours. At a local school shooting, they had the results back in a couple of hours.

Couple that with exigent cell phone pings, and you get this type of results.