Analyzing evidence is a waiting game
♦ As the GBI Crime Lab deals with backlogs, Floyd police are processing latent fingerprints at the department.
A bag of white powder. Fingerprints on the window of a burglarized home. Blood spatter on a gun.
When Floyd County police find evidence at a crime scene, it often must be sent to the GBI Crime Lab for analysis, and that can take months or even a year. The headquarters lab in Decatur, one of seven in the state, serves Floyd and 33 other counties including Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett.
FCPD Lt. Dan Pendley said the GBI does what it can with the budget it’s allotted.
The Valdosta and Warner Robins police departments have forensics labs accredited through the American National Standards Institute — American Society for Quality national board. Other local law enforcement agencies depend on the GBI.
Waiting for results can slow investigations aimed at identifying and jailing criminals.
“Sometimes we’re able to go ahead and make a charge based on other evidence we have,” Pendley said. “But then the trial is delayed, so it’s a hit from both sides.”
The FCPD does have Pendley, who went through a series of courses to become certified as a latent fingerprint examiner. What it doesn’t have, yet, is much equipment.
Pendley made “a little fish-tank thing” that serves as a fuming chamber. It allows him to use cyanoacrylate ester — the active ingredient in superglue — to set prints lifted from crime scenes. But he has to take it outside to do it safely, and that creates another set of problems.
“When you’re outside you’re dealing with temperature, and there are some things like humidity that I can’t control,” he said.
An earmark in the 2017 SPLOST package, however, will allow the department to buy a real fuming chamber, which can run anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 and up. Pendley said he uses his makeshift chamber often, and one with precise controls will help speed investigations.
“Unlike television, though, I can’t always get legible prints,” he said with a chuckle. “On television they always seem to get usable prints, but sometimes all you get are smudged or partials.” Still, it’s an invaluable tool. “We do try to prioritize, but I try to get everything done that I can,” Pendley said.
As for suspected drugs and biological evidence, that will continue to be sent to the certified GBI Crime Lab for testing.
“You’ve got to have a chemist on staff, so they can say, ‘Yes, that’s synthetic marijuana or cocaine,” Pendley said. “And for the biological — DNA testing, processing of sexual assault kits and things like that — we have no choice but to send it off.”
Aside from the trained staff, the GBI also has equipment that can analyze unknown materials such as powders, liquids and stains. Pendley said that would run into the “hundreds and thousands of dollars” to buy.
District Attorney Leigh Patterson’s office can sometimes get evidence in major cases, such as murders, bumped to the front of the processing line, he said. Most evidence, however, has to wait its turn.
“Maybe someday we’ll be big enough to follow in the footsteps of agencies like Valdosta and Warner Robins, but for a long time we’re going to be dependent on the GBI Lab for processing our chemical and biological evidence.”