A conversation with John Risenhoover
Law enforcement agencies across the U.S. are being asked to do more with less—fewer resources, leaner teams, and growing expectations from the communities they serve. Real-time access to information has become essential for agencies working under tighter constraints. Officers need critical intelligence in the moment, not hours or days later, and not locked away in systems only a handful of specialists can access.
That urgency shaped the transformation of the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), a system originally designed to match ballistic evidence across crime scenes. Once mired in delays and inefficiencies, NIBIN evolved into a fast, investigative tool that helps law enforcement identify and disrupt violent crime. John Risenhoover, former ATF Senior Special Agent and now a Customer Success Manager at ForceMetrics, led that transformation—and he’s applying those same lessons to real-time intelligence in policing today.
"NIBIN has been an invaluable tool for police, linking seemingly unconnected crimes and helping to catch criminals who might otherwise go free," John Risenhoover told The Washington Post in 2016.
But when Risenhoover took over the NIBIN program in 2012, its powerful technology platform was crippled by inefficient processes established by ATF. Risenhoover, who now serves as a Customer Success Manager at ForceMetrics, found that the timeline from incident to actionable intelligence was an astonishing 18 months.
"The whole key is providing intelligence in real-time," explains Risenhoover. "We had great tech, but terrible processes. I remember telling a detective that I linked three aggravated assaults to one of his cases. He proceeded to cuss me out, explaining 'he gets three cases a day and when I walk in and start telling him about linking to his case he closed a year ago, and I'm not helping." Clearly, NIBIN needed to evolve to meet investigators' actual needs.
The original NIBIN workflow required multiple redundant steps:
Risenhoover's key insight: this extensive verification process was unnecessary for most cases. "We uncovered that we only needed dual verification and court-ready forensic reports in around 0.6% of the time."
By eliminating unnecessary steps and producing investigative leads rather than court-ready forensic reports, Risenhoover transformed NIBIN from an 18-month process to a 24-48 hour turnaround. NIBIN sites that previously processed ~100 confirmed hits per year could now produce approximately 4,000 investigative leads annually, vastly increasing the network's intelligence value.
When asked what they actually needed, investigators revealed they wanted intelligence at the crime scene itself. Risenhoover notes that NIBIN's next goal is a 1-2 hour processing time directly at crime scenes. This goal paints a compelling picture of what real-time intelligence could look like in the hands of officers investigating active crime scenes.
This shift toward timely intelligence and proactive policing that Risenhoover pioneered at NIBIN now serves as the foundation for his work with agencies at ForceMetrics.
While NIBIN works toward real-time crime scene intelligence for ballistics, ForceMetrics is already delivering this vision across multiple data sources and in the hands of analysts, officers, clerks and RTCC agents across the country.
"When you're out at a crime scene, just like with NIBIN, you need the information immediately, so you can get the shooter, resolve the case, and move on to the next," Risenhoover explains.
One powerful aspect of ForceMetrics is its ability to surface previously inaccessible Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) notes. When officers respond to calls, they don't write formal reports approximately 75-80% of the time, instead typing brief notes into CAD—creating a vast repository of intelligence that has remained largely untapped.
"Only specialized personnel could search CAD systems at specific terminals with limited access," notes Risenhoover. "With ForceMetrics, any officer can easily find that information. What's interesting is that we're seeing officers document more details now because they know their observations won't just disappear into the system."
The platform's Google-like search interface makes this possible, requiring minimal training and feeling immediately familiar to users. "We built something that works the way people already behave," says Risenhoover. "An officer can start using it effectively in minutes rather than weeks."
The power of connecting previously disconnected data has been demonstrated through NIBIN. In 2015, Denver police, who pioneered the new NIBIN program, responded to a ShotSpotter alert and found shell casings on an empty sidewalk. When entered into NIBIN, these casings revealed a connection between two seemingly unrelated shootings: one where a burglar shot at a homeowner, and another where someone shot a family's dog during a break-in.
ForceMetrics expands this concept beyond ballistics. In Albany, GA, a lieutenant searching for a fugitive discovered a new address in ForceMetrics that hadn't appeared elsewhere. Officers found the suspect at this location—an address buried in CAD notes that would have remained inaccessible without ForceMetrics.
In Waco, TX, a patrol officer searching for a suspect wanted for a serious crime against a child examined possible associates in ForceMetrics. The ninth person on the list led directly to the suspect's location and arrest.
The impact is visible in search volume. One user conducted over 300,000 searches in ForceMetrics—searches that would have taken hundreds of thousands of hours using traditional methods. Another agency had a single officer conduct 15,000 searches in just two months.
As Risenhoover points out, "The point isn't that ForceMetrics is just 'faster.' The point is these individuals wouldn't have done those searches in the first place because it took so much effort across so many systems."
The future of NIBIN aims to deliver ballistic intelligence within 1-2 hours at crime scenes. ForceMetrics already delivers this real-time intelligence across multiple data sources, including CAD/CMS, Flock, Axon, Prepared, and many more.
This represents a fundamental shift in public safety from reactive case-building to proactive prevention. With immediate access to comprehensive intelligence, officers can identify individuals driving community violence and take swift action to prevent the next incident.
"Patrol lives in a 24-hour window," explains Risenhoover. "If information isn't immediately available, it simply isn't useful. Officers need intelligence in the moment to make the community safer."
In the end, both NIBIN and ForceMetrics are built on the same principle: timely intelligence leads to safer communities. By making critical data accessible exactly when needed, these technologies are transforming law enforcement's fundamental mission of public safety.
John Risenhoover serves as a Customer Success Manager at ForceMetrics, drawing on 27 years of ATF experience. At ATF, he transformed the NIBIN program from a failing initiative to a crucial investigative tool, increasing entries by 1000% and developing the Crime Gun Intelligence Center strategy and conceptualizing the NIBIN National Correlation Center. His career includes work on the Oklahoma City Bombing investigation and being wounded during the 1993 Waco raid.
Prior to ForceMetrics, he led Customer Success at ShotSpotter, guiding 50+ agencies in implementing gun violence technology. John began his service as a Lance Corporal in the USMC Reserves (1984-1988). His unique blend of military, law enforcement, and technology expertise shapes his approach to helping agencies prevent crime through actionable intelligence.