HPD budget woes derail grant bid
By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Honolulu Police Department's staff shortage and budget troubles made it impossible to seek a federal grant for DNA testing of backlogged evidence this year, officials say.
Money is available to police agencies each year from the U.S. Department of Justice to build a nationwide electronic database of DNA profiles, the Combined DNA Index System.
But HPD did not have enough criminalists and all necessary lab equipment to qualify for a grant that was offered until March, Maj. Susan Ballard said.
It's unclear how much Honolulu could have received, but the money would have paid for DNA tests to help clear a backlog of cases that need to be included in the national index, she said.
The system, which the FBI Laboratory began in 1990, allows federal, state and local crime labs to exchange and compare DNA profiles and link crimes to each other and to convicted criminals.
HPD has about 150 cases in which evidence has yet to be tested for DNA, but that does not mean Honolulu is farther behind other cities, Ballard said.
"HPD is pretty much in the ballpark with everyone else on the Mainland, thus the push from the federal government to make monies available to clear up the DNA backlog of cases," she said.
Still, the backlog can be frustrating to crime victims because evidence that could help identify a suspect is sometimes not immediately tested, depending on the crime.
"People say, 'If there's evidence there, what do you mean you can't test it?' " Ballard said. "We really empathize with them."
She felt the frustration when her own home was burglarized several months ago.
"Because it happened to me, I understand where they're coming from," Ballard said.
HPD has struggled to hire and retain enough police officers to meet Honolulu's public safety needs, and faces budget cuts this year that could make the situation more difficult.
Ballard said the priority has been to keep enough uniformed officers on the street, and that has made it hard to build up the crime lab's capabilities.
Joanne Furuya, who heads the department's Scientific Investigation Section, said major upgrades are needed in several areas so the lab can be fully accredited.
The lab's DNA seriology unit was audited in 2000 after the FBI questioned whether some evidence had been handled improperly. The scrutiny led to improvements and the unit is now accredited, Furuya said.
But other units must be accredited as a group, and that will require a significant expansion of the lab's facilities, she said. Those units examine drugs, firearms, trace evidence, latent fingerprints, and questioned documents.
"What we're striving for is total accreditation," Furuya said. "We need to get more people in here and expand to meet our caseload needs."
HPD plans to hire a consultant to map out specifically what is needed and how much it will cost, she said.
Evidence recovered from a crime scene, such as saliva residue on a cigarette butt or a single hair, can help link a suspect to the crime.
Reach Johnny Brannon at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
