BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Leaders of the Louisiana State Police are confident in making positive changes as a new crime lab officially breaks ground.
The old crime lab held up to 100 people maximum and some cases all over the state have gone unsolved because of a huge backlog. Gov. John Bel Edwards said space and technical modifications were needed.
“There are 200 agencies across the state of Louisiana who routinely submit evidence to the state police crime lab, and so they’re there gathering and processing, analyzing all of that evidence, really, for most of the agencies in the state,” said Edwards.
LSP leaders said with more staff and efficient equipment they plan to reduce the amount of time it takes to solve a crime. Leaders said it would also cut down on the people wrongly convicted.
“With the complexity of crimes that are being committed today, it’s incumbent upon us to make sure that we’re providing the best resources to be able to solve those crimes and you have to have a facility that is flexible and innovative,” said LSP Superintendent Col. Lamar Davis.
Officials said construction on the new crime lab is expected to take a little over two years.
