MERIDIAN, Idaho — Idaho State Police tell Idaho News 6, they've run out of space in their current forensic science facility due in large part to Idaho's population growth. A new forensic lab will help with their need for capacity.
- A new state-of-the-art facility will allow ISP to examine more evidence faster.
- The agency will be able to hire more scientists and work with other agencies to solve investigations.
- The facility is still in the design process, ISP hopes to break ground next spring.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
“We have six chemists that work in the laboratory, and we have work benches for four,” said laboratory system director Matthew Gamette.
Gamette, giving me a tour of the current forensic labs at ISP headquarters.
“So we have thousands of these instruments that come in every year, and this is the space that they have to do all of that work,” said Gamette.
As Idaho’s population rapidly grows, so are the rates of crime in the state. Now more than ever, their forensics team needs more space to examine criminal evidence, helping solve investigations faster.
Their current labs were remodeled from office spaces. The much needed, new facility will be built as a laboratory with proper technology, HVAC systems and state-of-the-art equipment.
“So as we design a new laboratory, we’re looking at designing spaces for those instruments, and also trying to think in the future for what new types of instrumentation might come online,” said Gamette.
And continue to hire more scientists so they can work with agencies like the coroner to help determine causes of death.
“What we’re finding is that a lot of people, that we think might've been dying of natural causes… we're actually finding that they’re dying of fentanyl overdoses,” said Gamette.
With all of Idaho’s DNA testing performed in Meridian, Gamette says the newest and largest lab makes sense being in the heart of the Treasure Valley.
“So when there’s a convicted felon in our state, we put their DNA into the DNA database to be searched against unsolved crimes. All of that work happens here in Meridian and only in Meridian for our state. We also do all of the Latent print analysis so the fingerprint type analysis.”
Drafts of the lab’s designs are being reviewed by architects.
ISP is still working on finalizing those design plans but they hope to break ground for the new facility come next spring.
