Police Commission to Review Space Allocation in Crime Lab

Prompted by an appeal from Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles Police Commission decided Tuesday to jump into the fray over how much space to devote to analyzing DNA in a new state-of-the-art crime lab.

“The science is here today,” Cooley said. “An adequate facility and the staff to fill it are the missing elements, and are long overdue.”

Commission President Rick Caruso said the panel will review the plans for the facility and decide “what we are going to do with the crime lab.”

For months, Cooley has publicly urged the LAPD to expand the DNA testing section of its share of the lab. In June, he proposed changes to the lab’s board of directors, comprised of the region’s top police officials, who rejected his suggestions.

The commission action Tuesday follows revelations that the LAPD has mistakenly destroyed evidence from 1,000 rape investigations.

One of the obstacles to exploiting advances in the police use of DNA has been the lack of space and personnel to perform the required analysis. The LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department maintain about 3,700 untested samples of biological evidence from cases that have gone unsolved, or in which no suspect has been identified.

On average, each agency receives 60 to 80 new requests for DNA analysis each month.

The proposed $96-million lab, shared by both departments, will house separate laboratories for each in the same 213,000-square-foot building. It is scheduled to open at Cal State L.A. in 2005.

Analysis of biological evidence from sexual assaults frequently allows criminalists to develop a DNA profile of the rapist, which they can then run through a State Department of Justice database of 244,000 profiles of convicted felons in search of a match.

The new crime lab provides “the opportunity to have no more Night Stalkers ... no more Hillside Stranglers,” Cooley said.

The Night Stalker was Richard Ramirez, who committed serial rapes and murders in 1985. The Hillside Stranglers were Angelo Buono Jr. and Kenneth Bianchi, who committed a series of murders in 1978 and 1979.

The “LAPD’s projections for staff and space for their DNA section are grossly inadequate for present and future needs,” Cooley told the commission.

Cooley has argued that the Police Department needs to double the 12,528 square feet of space it plans to devote to DNA analysis. That would accommodate only 25 DNA criminalists, about 15 less than are needed, Cooley said.

Cooley supports the sheriff’s plan for its lab, which calls for more than 26,397 square feet for DNA analysis, enough room for 44 criminalists. The LAPD needs as much as the Sheriff’s Department because each agency has similar caseloads, according to Cooley.

Interim LAPD Chief Martin Pomeroy said that he would like to have as many criminalists as Cooley advocates, and agrees “DNA is at the forefront of crime fighting.”

But he said the LAPD’s plans are adequate for the number of criminalists that the City Council will fund. Those plans provide enough flexibility for more space later.

“We will find the floor space when we get them,” he said.

Critics have protested the destruction of evidence in the rape cases, which LAPD officials said was destroyed largely because detectives were not aware that the applicable statute of limitations for sex offenses had been extended.

Caruso asked the department to submit a report at a later meeting on how police personnel are kept up to date on changes in the law.