SOUTHLAND : Orange County to Build DNA Lab
The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously today to build what will become the first genetic testing laboratory in California and the third in the nation.
The DNA lab, providing sophisticated crime-fighting tools, will be built with $120,000 from county funds and $80,000 raised from private sources. The lab, to open by the end of the year, will initially operate out of the county coroner’s offices in Santa Ana.
The vote followed an emotional meeting earlier this month at which the board’s only woman member, Harriett M. Wieder, questioned her male colleagues’ concern for female rape victims because of their refusal to pay quickly for a “genetic fingerprinting” lab. The latest push for the DNA lab followed the rape of a 12-year-old girl in the same Huntington Beach neighborhood where Wieder lives.
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