Groundbreaking today in southern Minnesota at a new BCA facility.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension's regional office and laboratory in Mankato will open in early 2027, says BCA superintendent Drew Evans.
"We'll have faster response times. Just this weekend we're in Brown County, had a terrible situation there," says Evans. "This means that the crime scene team comes out of Mankato and not out of the Twin Cities, meaning they're on scene. Last time our law enforcement had to be located at that place."
Along with a full-service forensic laboratory, the new facility will also house a digital crime lab expected to process 6,000 cases per year.
Evans adds Mankato will serve as a training hub.
"And this will have a training room that will accommodate up to 60 students where we'll offer those programs so that they don't have to travel across the state to attend those," explains Evans. "So hopefully the ones that were most utilized, most often, will be down here at this location."
Evans says the Mankato facility's main purpose will be those faster response times.
"We have much more convenient access to the tools in our laboratories," he adds. "Rapid DNA is one of those emerging technologies that we're looking at and how to distribute that across our entire state. And having a hub like this with the regional office is going to make that more possible more quickly."
Governor Tim Walz was also on the scene, celebrating the groundbreaking, as was Blue Earth County Sheriff Jeff Wersal who says the Mankato facility will expedite investigations.
"And the frustrations for the wait times aren't just on law enforcement, it's on the victims of crime and the people that want the cases settled," Sheriff Wersal added. "And sometimes we had to wait till the BCA lab got what we needed. And to have that right literally right in our backyard is going to be great, not only for us but for the chiefs and sheriffs around the state that no longer have to make that trip again to St. Paul. They can come here. It's easy in easy out."