New software aids law enforcement in solving gun and gang related crimes

ShieldOps is the name of the company. GunOps and Gang Injunction are the names of the programs that could help improve the investigation and completion of gun and gang-related crimes. The inventors in the company’s programs are Jon Centanni, a Cal State Fullerton alumnus and detective sergeant, and Rocky Edwards, a firearms examiner. Both work for a large municipal law enforcement agency in Southern California.

It began with an idea; ShieldOps was created due to the demand. As Edwards quoted from a well-known Aesop fable, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” The overwhelming amount of case data they go through daily needed some form of organization. By chance, Centanni and Edwards were attempting new ways of cataloging data around the same time.

Edwards came up with an idea of tracking gun-related crimes through firearm cartridge cases and bullets. Simultaneously, Centanni was beginning to experiment as well. “I started working on creating a database to track all of the hits that (Edwards) kept stacking on my desk. I needed something to organize in my mind all of the ballistically linked cases because there are so many of them,” Centanni said.