EDMOND – Moving a forensics crime lab from one location to another while preserving case work is a daunting task.
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Officials from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation began the process of moving their lab from its old office in Oklahoma City to their new, state-of-the-art facility in Edmond a year ahead of time, said Charles Curtis, director of the forensics center.
A dedication ceremony for the new center was held Thursday.
A moving committee was formed to plan the move. The committee consulted with the FBI and other agencies that have faced similar moves in the past, Curtis said.
“Everything went remarkably well,” Curtis said. “Nothing was lost and nothing was broken. It’s just amazing.”
The move took just more than two weeks. It would have been impossible to move the whole facility at once without jeopardizing cases and investigations, so they split the move into sections.
“We wanted to minimize down time,” Curtis said. “No court proceedings were slowed.”
He did say that the number of active cases each department of the forensics center has is a little bit slowed, but still their average turnaround is only a day or two behind at about 12 days, Curtis said.
That is nowhere near long enough to risk the adjudication of a case, much less the investigation.
The moving process
The moving committee decided it would be best to move the center piece by piece in order to minimize down time, Curtis said.
The first department to move into the new 86,000-square-foot center — the old one was a mere 19,000-square-feet — was the latent print department, which specializes in fingerprints. The next departments to go were firearms and drugs.
The trace evidence and toxicology departments were next, with trace evidence being very instrument heavy. Trace evidence would include investigating fibers, arsons, and other materials, Curtis said.
Lastly, the biology department was moved.
“Biology is the largest by far,” Curtis said.
All of their equipment also had to be re-calibrated by a factory technician. Still, Curtis said, no investigation was slowed.
Biology is responsible for DNA and handles most of the caseload of the agency. Most are in relation to murder and sex crime investigations, Curtis said.
OSBI does not have a large store of evidence of any kind simply because the evidence comes and goes like a revolving door as investigations are completed and returned to respective agencies.
Augie Frost: 475-4161, afrost@oklahoman.com
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