TULSA -- Construction is planned next spring on a forensics center that will aid police investigations and educate Oklahoma State University students.
"It's a practicing laboratory with academic programs devoted to forensic science," said Robert Allen, professor of forensics science and biochemistry at the OSU medical college, which will provide $21.87 million for construction costs, mainly from bonds.
The city will provide $16.86 million from revenue generated by the 2001 and 2006 third-penny sales tax, and the 2005 general obligation bond, said Laura Christiansen, spokeswoman for the city.
It will be built on OSU's Tulsa campus.
A property and evidence room and a forensics laboratory for the Tulsa Police Department will occupy the first two floors of the facility, said Maj. Steven Bayles, the department's project manager. Police forensics investigators now work in a confined space.
"This will give them the opportunity to have more room to perform their examinations," Bayles said.
Capt. Jim Hunter said the additional room will help the department preserve the more than 36,000 items of evidence police gather yearly, including evidence for homicide cases, which are kept until the convicted person gets out of prison.
Police also keep evidence in "cold cases," or unsolved homicides.
In November, more than 20 scientists and staff members performed 2,550 tests on evidence, with 2,398 backlogged cases involving tests carried over into December.
Work performed in the forensics laboratory include fingerprint analysis, DNA testing, firearms examinations, controlled substance analysis and handwriting analysis.
The building will include forensic science classrooms, research labs and faculty offices.
4 comments:
Sam, good article. It was nice to get a change of pase for once and read about how forensic science is expanding through constuction. It was very detailed but sometimes information seemed scattared. Overall it was a good article and thanks for sharing it.
This was a good article about a new forensics center being built in Tulsa that will aid police and educate college students. Its good that OSU students will be able to learn about forensics and that there will be a lot performed in the lab, such as DNA testing, firearms examination, and numerous analyses. It was very informative, giving the exact number of statistics. But it would be good to include when the construction will be done. Overall, good job.
I think this was a good choice for an article, it was very interesting and well written.
Sam that was a very interesting article about a forensics center being built in Tusla to educate college students. The article could have been more succinct but otherwise was very well written.
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