It has become clear that a shortcoming of our previous staffing plan was that the long-term strategic planning was being coordinated by the manager of the daily operations at Quantico and Commander Christopher Lojacono, the Director of MPD’s Forensic Science Division.  Each of these responsibilities – daily operations of the lab at Quantico, MPD’s current Forensic responsibilities, and the long-term strategic planning for MPD’s portion of the consolidated lab – require full attention.  Dividing these responsibilities between three managers should provide the leadership that is needed to move forward in all these areas.

To further support our efforts, I have asked the FBI to conduct a comprehensive examination of how our Department collects, handles and stores all types of evidence, and to recommend improvements.  In addition, our Department met with the FBI late last year to discuss ways to speed up the analysis of the MPD’s DNA cases at the Quantico lab and to get more of our cases entered into CODIS.

Finally, I want to address the issue of grant spending. With the support of the Mayor and the Council, our Department has been able to secure approximately $338,000 in federal funds to enhance our DNA analysis capacity and another $188,000 to help reduce the current backlog of DNA cases. More than half of the funds for capacity enhancement has already been spent or encumbered for critical laboratory equipment.  The remaining funds will be used primarily to purchase additional equipment.   

To date, we have spent approximately $60,000 in the DNA backlog reduction grant, which has gone toward DNA testing at outside laboratories.  I know there has been some concern that these funds were not spent more quickly.  However, because the private labs cannot enter any results into CODIS, we were still not getting the full advantage of the DNA analysis.  We have been in discussions with the City of Baltimore about a partnership that would allow us to send some DC backlog cases to its lab for analysis.  The Baltimore lab would be able to support both the DNA analysis and the entry of our case information into CODIS.  We hope to formalize an MOU shortly, and then use the remaining funding for the backlog reduction to send cases to Baltimore.  We have also reached out to several other local labs to explore similar agreements.  In FY 2006, we received a three-year grant for $700,000 through the Justice Grants Administration.  This will also help the Department to reduce the DNA backlog. 

As I mentioned at the beginning of my statement, the District was very slow in “getting out of the gate” when it comes to DNA technology, and we have had to play catch-up ever since. And while we have taken a number of interim steps in the last few years to enhance our DNA analysis capabilities and provide some short-term support to our crime-fighting efforts, the bottom line remains the same: the MPD will never be able to take full advantage of the benefits and the potential of DNA technology until we have our own, fully functional DC crime lab. All of us need to keep focused and working together toward achieving that common goal. 

Thank you.