Crime lab to get elbow room
By Erin Snelgrove
Yakima Herald-Republic
Oct. 6, 2006
Kristen Drury, a Yakima Police Department evidence lab technician,
dusts a pistol for fingerprints in the department's tiny forensics
lab Wednesday. The police department is building a new evidence lab
that will be five times larger than the current 100-square-foot lab.
The department says the expansion will make the handling of evidence
easier and more secure.
The counter is strewn with boxes and plastic containers. A coat rack
juts against an industrial-sized garbage can, and an assortment of
supplies line the bottom of a fish tank.
But this chaotic scene at the Yakima Police Station's forensic crime lab will soon change, once a $100,000 expansion project begins this winter.
"It gets kind of crazy," said Kristen Drury, an evidence technician who works in the lab. "What I can fit in this tiny closet is amazing."
In the lab, Drury examines blood evidence and fingerprints. She takes photographs and tests for drug residue. But at only 100 square feet, the lab is limited both in work space and in what equipment it can store.
Technicians must now take turns analyzing evidence, and if there's a backlog, it has to be hauled to the room in intervals on carts and in paper bags.
The new lab will have five times the working space and a 110-square-foot office. It will be located in a different part of the building, next to the room where evidence is stored. Technicians will also be able to work on numerous projects at once.
In addition, there's space for extra equipment, said Lt. Gary Belles, who oversees the building's operations. The immediate goal is to create a ballistics lab where bullets can be analyzed. This type of evidence must now be sent to the state lab in Cheney, which often results in long waits.
"We are held hostage to their time schedule," he said. "It's first come, first serve."
Through an in-house ballistics lab, Belles said evidence could be analyzed more quickly for Yakima, Selah, Union Gap and other police departments in Central Washington.
Talks are now taking place with federal authorities, which would provide the equipment. Additional ballistics training would also be required.
Construction of the new lab is tentatively scheduled from December through February and will involve what is now a uniform supply room and an office. Crews will combine the rooms by tearing down the adjoining wall.
The project will be paid for through the three-tenths of a percent sales tax increase voters approved countywide two years ago, with the expense split between the city's 2006 and 2007 budgets. The county receives 60 percent of the tax receipts and the cities share 40 percent.
The city's portion of the funds have also been used to pay for increased jail costs and to hire six police officers and three court staff.