Tribe Antes Up for Police Crime Lab Equipment

As law enforcement officials praised them for their community spirit, leaders of the Santa Ynez band of Chumash Indians announced Thursday that they are donating more than $158,000 in sophisticated crime lab equipment to police agencies throughout Santa Barbara County.

The gifts of advanced finger and palm print detection systems that will allow police to zero in much more quickly on crime suspects are part of the tribe’s effort to demonstrate that “we are ready and willing to step up to the plate when it comes to supporting our community,” said Ted Ortega, tribal vice chairman, at a news conference in Santa Maria.

The tribe, still drawing some criticism from county political leaders for alleged failure to pay adequate mitigation fees in connection with a major expansion of its casino in the Santa Ynez Valley, even won praise from one of its strongest critics Thursday for its gifts.

“I think that’s great,” said Supervisor Gail Marshall, whose 3rd District supervisorial seat includes the Santa Ynez area. “Anybody who donates to government these days deserves praise. Government certainly needs all they can get right now.”

Marshall was quick to add, however, that she still believes the tribe should pay millions of dollars in mitigation fees for the expanded casino’s impact on everything from local housing to roads. The tribe is nearing completion on a new 200,000-square-foot casino on its 127-acre reservation.

Blocked by the tribe’s sovereign status, Marshall has had no luck in the last year in pushing to get the Chumash to pay millions of dollars to the county. Federal law is clear that tribes have little obligation to negotiate with local governments.

Marshall noted Thursday that she also had heard that the Chumash had helped save this year’s Fourth of July fireworks show in the Santa Ynez Valley by contributing $15,000 to the show, making the tribe the largest single contributor to the event.

“That is a very good thing, too,” Marshall said. “They are doing what they want to do with their money, and that is nice. But they need to play by the same rules as any other major developer when it comes to something on the scale of the new casino. We are continuing to lobby the governor on this. So far, we’ve got bupkis. But I am relentless.”

Among the law enforcement officials joining Ortega Thursday was Doug Coleman, crime lab supervisor for the Santa Maria Police Department. He said the new detection equipment will allow police agencies throughout the county to be able to “do stuff we’ve never done before.”

In the past, Coleman said, local agencies trying to identify prints at crime scenes typically spent days processing the prints and sending them to Sacramento for possible identification. With the new equipment, officers will be able to immediately run the prints through local criminal records.

Ortega, who lives in Santa Maria, is in charge of initially processing requests for donations from the tribe and then presenting them to the tribal council. He said he became interested in the fingerprint scopes and other detection gear after seeing Coleman demonstrating them on television about six months ago.

The tribe first asked Coleman to formally request about $45,000 worth of the sophisticated equipment for the Santa Maria Police Department. But tribal leaders liked the idea so much that they decided to expand the donations countywide.

In addition to Santa Maria, police departments in Santa Barbara, Buellton, Goleta, Guadalupe, Solvang and Lompoc will be receiving crime lab equipment they have never had before, Coleman said. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department also will receive sophisticated fingerprint detection gear for its offices in both the southern and northern halves of the county.

In addition to his tribal position, Ortega works for the Santa Barbara County Agriculture Commission as a biologist in pesticide enforcement.

“I guess that gives me a special interest in law enforcement generally,” he said. “This fingerprint gear is just really neat. I thought we could make a difference if we helped out on it. We did it because we wanted to do it, and we knew it was a tough time for police departments to be buying gadgets like these.”