Officer: police seized Smith & Wesson 9mm from Jaylen Bell; lab examiner says scene casing did not match that weapon

DALLAS — Police testimony and forensic analysis presented in the 187th District Court showed investigators seized a Smith & Wesson 9mm from Jaylen Bell but that the laboratory later excluded that gun as the source of a shell casing recovered at the scene.

Officer Jose Bernal of the Dallas Police Department testified that on May 7, 2017, he and a partner responded to an early-morning welfare check and encountered a rear occupant in a taxi. Bernal said a pat search revealed a handgun in the individual—eltline. The officer identified the weapon at trial as a black Smith & Wesson 9mm and confirmed the serial number stamped on the firearm was LEJ9244. He said the weapon, a magazine and related packaging were placed into property (entered at trial as State's Exhibit 135).

David Pendleton, a firearms examiner at the Bexar County Criminal Investigation Laboratory, described laboratory procedures and reported he tested that Smith & Wesson by firing the weapon to generate known sample cartridge casings. Pendleton testified he compared those test casings to the fired cartridge case recovered from the scene (State's Exhibit 35) and concluded that the two were not fired in the same firearm. He said the exclusion was reached at the level of class characteristics — differences in the firing-pin impression shape and in the breech-face markings — so he did not have to proceed to individual microscopic comparison.

Key details and evidence chain: Bernal identified the seized weapon and testified it was taken into property and assigned evidence packaging; Pendleton explained the laboratory—xamination and confirmed reports in the file. Pendleton also testified about the laboratory's quality-control process: an earlier analyst, identified in court as Steven Salcedo, had originally prepared a report in 2017 that misidentified the cartridge description as ".40 Smith & Wesson"; an amended report in September 2017 corrected the caliber to 9mm. Pendleton said he later reopened or reviewed that file and issued a lab report dated September 12, 2024, after conducting test fires on the weapon available to the lab.

On the stand, Pendleton described the kinds of features examiners review: caliber and cartridge-case length (class characteristics) and the finer individual marks left by a firearm on fired cases or bullets. He testified that the test-fired casings from serial LEJ9244 exhibited a firing-pin and breech-face signature inconsistent with the cartridge case recovered from the scene. Pendleton said the Smith & Wesson example displayed a "teardrop"-style firing-pin impression and a particular breech-face contour characteristic of that make and model; the scene casing did not share those class features and thus was excluded as having been fired from that weapon.

Defense cross-examination probed possible sources of variation: the defense asked whether long storage, corrosion, manufacture variability, or other handling could change a weapon nd therefore alter impressions over time. Pendleton acknowledged that many variables can affect impressions but testified that, absent a forced change or damage, firearms generally retain class and individual characteristics and that the differences he observed were sufficient for an exclusion.

The defense also asked whether an earlier exemplar might have been entered into a national database (NIBIN) from Dallas; Pendleton said he did not review any exemplar fired in Dallas and instead compared the scene casing to the test fires he produced in San Antonio. He explained the database can provide leads but is not a substitute for a controlled laboratory comparison.

Court action on exhibits: The court admitted State's Exhibit 135 (the seized firearm and magazine) and State's Exhibit 138 (photographs of comparison casings). The defense cross-examination highlighted the passage of time between the 2017 recovery of the scene casing and the later testing of the seized weapon, and the examiner acknowledged the absence of an earlier test-fired exemplar in the court record for comparison.

What this means for the case: The prosecution offered testimony establishing possession of a firearm by Jaylen Bell and the weapon's seizure in 2017. The lab's exclusion means the particular shell casing submitted from the scene has not been forensically matched to that seized gun based on the class-level differences Pendleton described. The court admitted the firearm into evidence and the examiner's exclusion into the record; how the factfinder will weigh that evidence is for the jury.

Trial status: After Pendleton's testimony and admission of exhibits, counsel completed questioning and the court recessed; the trial will continue with further witnesses and evidence.