You've heard me talk a number of times about the importance of a well functioning crime lab in a police department or investigative agency. The city of New Orleans is one that definitely should have the benefit of one, but in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina they’ve struggled to pull it together. I made the observation the other day that this NOLA Coalition might be in a great place to provide the administrative guidance to get the crime lab running at full capacity. I spoke to Dr. Skip Gallagher, a Chemistry and Forensic Science Professor at the University of New Orleans, who has taken a keen interest in the lab. He’s discovered a multitude of impediments and failures within it.
What have you seen in your review of the NOPD crime lab? What are you finding?
There is a ridiculous level of attrition at the crime lab. In 2018, there were 44 civilian employees at the crime lab and right now there are 21. Within that 21, nine workers have less than a year experience and only 12 have more than a year experience. It's a real problem because your experience in many of these fields is absolutely critical in your ability to understand the evidence and then testify according to that evidence. It’s a real problem when trying to analyze evidence. And as it was reported in Lee Zurik piece, there's more than 73,000 DNA samples sitting in central evidence right now that are unprocessed.
I don't think this is really a function of money anymore, right?
There are steps that the City Council needs to take first so that the mayor can act. What we keep doing is underpaying our crime lab employees, and other crime labs are poaching those people and paying them considerably more… Another problem is we don't have a head of the crime lab. They haven't had one in almost four years. A part of the problem, I blame on police staffing. There are seven police officers assigned to the crime lab and none of them are qualified to work there. Let’s also talk about drug chemistry. There are 33,000 unprocessed drug samples sitting in central evidence. The crime lab only has two drug chemists. There should be at least a half a dozen.
Doc, you wrote to the City Council about this dysfunction and lack of funding for the crime lab. Did you get any response?
Essentially, no. They don't have to respond, but it would be helpful if they did something for the people in the lab. When they go out to collect DNA samples, they realize there is no hope that sample will ever be tested, because such a tiny amount of them actually are. Lab workers doing a job and knowing nothing will happen with the result of their work is really discouraging to someone who's trying to make a difference
When you think about it, DNA and drug testing rules out a lot of people as suspects of a crime. It works to the benefit of everyone.
There isn't a person who engages in one crime and then says they're done. Somebody doesn't break into a house once and then decides they aren’t going to do it anymore. We see the same people committing crimes and one of the ways to solve that kind of problem is through DNA. The crime lab doesn’t have the ability to test DNA and is sending over 700 samples to the state crime lab. Those samples are taking a year or more to process. That means a criminal is still out there committing a crime. In 2020, the city of New Orleans solve rate for rape was 9%. It’s one of the lowest in the country. This year the solve rate is 5%. If we're not processing DNA, how in the world do we expect to solve these kinds of crimes?
