Located in a renovated 30,000-square foot building that once housed the county’s highway department, it’s now home to three units dealing with crime scenes, high-tech crime and evidence management.
County Prosecutor Scott Coffina says they’ve been quietly working out of here for almost a year now.
“It really gives us an opportunity to do the incredible work that our detectives and our assistant prosecutors have been doing out here,” Coffina told KYW Newsradio. “They now have the tools that are commensurate the importance of what they’re doing.”
Now lab specialists and detectives can better coordinate with those taking cases to court. And they’re far less reliant on state police to process evidence.
“We’d have to take a number with some of the other counties that are also working with the state police and the state police with its own jobs,” Coffina added. “So it gives us the ability to work more effectively and efficiently right here.”
The lab operation dates back to 1976 and operated out of much tighter quarters in several locations. The county debated the need for this facility for some time before spending some 5 million dollars to re-do the layout and install some state of the art equipment.