Tabitha Bandy 35 min

Panel Discussion: Advancements in Investigative Tools: Strengthening the Fight Against Crime


Join a panel of experts from the East Baton Rouge as they delve into their innovative strategies for combating the surge in gun violence within the community.



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[MUSIC]

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Hello, I'm Tabitha Bandi, and I'm here today at HIDS at Bodie Technology.

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Today we have Erin Sweeney, the Lab Director at Bodie Technology.

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Major Todd Morris from East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office.

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District Attorney Hiller Moore from East Baton Rouge Parish.

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And Erica Sparicino from Louisiana State Police Crime Lab.

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She's the Forensic DNA Manager.

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We want to talk about how they have strengthened the fight against crime

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using advancement in forensic technology.

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So I know that at the onset of COVID-19,

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at East Baton Rouge experienced an uptick in crime.

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Was this part of what motivated you all to come together?

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And how did you bring on board the other agencies and organizations to help?

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>> Yeah, so actually before COVID, in the job that I have,

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I'm able to travel around the country and look at other District Attorney's

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offices

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to see what they're doing and how they do it.

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And prior to COVID, BJA was looking for

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a prosecutor-led programs to give some grant money to one was a crime-good

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intelligence center.

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And we visited the Denver Crime-Good Intelligence Center,

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which is associated with the laboratory there.

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And that's where I met that lab director and BJA and they visited Baton Rouge

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and

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looked at the collaboration that we had at the time going.

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And they said, we think this would be a great place to start a prosecutor-led

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CGIC program there knowing the collaboration we had.

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So that's really where it started and then COVID hit and everyone knows what

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was

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trying to run its head.

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And then, but we picked it up again and it's been in progress ever since then.

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The grant has now expired, but we have found that now it's so

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valuable to us that we have continued that grant.

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Everyone is working on it and it's something that we know we cannot do without

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now.

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Because this is what drives all of our cases.

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What we began was, is a robust collection of shell casing,

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followed by DNA testing of the shells themselves.

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And we were able to then collaborate and see that although we had

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an outsourced sized number of homicides and shootings that the vast majority of

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the shootings were really concentrated highly in areas and amongst people.

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And then group involved shootings.

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So we tried to break the larger number down to smaller parts to try to conquer

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the problem that we faced.

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And we have seen over the past three or four years that our numbers and

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homicides, shots fired, non-federal shootings have gone down.

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And we're moving in the right direction, although not yet at pre COVID numbers,

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where we want to be.

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But we're seeing that the collaboration by the men and

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the women that are on the street that pick up the shell casings.

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That those small things that they're able to do with the DNA,

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and particularly with the cooperation we've had with Bodey Labs and others.

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That it is really paid dividends for us.

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So some jurisdictions that may be listening, you can do this without a grant.

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Because you already have the people there working with your crime lab,

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working with the different departments, maybe even your university.

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We've found our university LSU and others to be really big drivers and

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grant writers.

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The National Guard is also part of this probation poll.

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If the agency that we have all the federal partners are all part of this.

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Also important to this is we not only do the research and look at the data,

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but we meet on a weekly basis to over what happened the week before and

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where our needs and who's our trigger pollers and what do we want to be.

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We also have data that's collected through the crime strategies unit,

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which is run through our office and National Guard,

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Conner Drug Intelligence Analysts.

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They're able to have everyone used to take data from all of the police reports.

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And they synthesize that and they put out these reports that are

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extremely detailed as to what's happening where Hornle Block,

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inner family, inner community, what time is it, would they.

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We do that not only with homicide, but non-fadals with shots fired.

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And we've expanded recently into fentanyl use and over those use.

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So it's a better use of limited resources that we now have.

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And the idea is to hopefully focus only on the trigger pollers,

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not throw a wide net and try to get everyone,

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but those that are causing trouble move on to the next one and select your

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cases.

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>> All right.

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So what are some of the strategies and techniques that have had the greatest

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impact on cases in your all's jurisdiction?

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>> Well, this is a collaborative effort.

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We always have worked with our partner, federal, state, local,

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our crime lab partners, and it takes all of us doing our own specific task,

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but collectively communicating and talking about that.

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It takes the work of our intelligence personnel.

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It takes on our coxivision has been a huge part of our

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efforts here when we're going after a mid and upper level drug dealers that are

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getting a lot of guns when we run those search warrants,

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our uniform patrol, our officers at the Batterton Police Department,

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on their traffic stops collecting guns.

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It was a whole approach using intelligence-driven information

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to identify the groups or gangs that are responsible for a lot of our shootings

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And so we can focus our attention on those individuals.

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When you look at them, historically, you know, you have them involved in other

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crimes

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also too.

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And say it's a non-fatal shooting, and it's just not a homicide,

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just because they made a bad shot.

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And so when we look at our numbers,

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Hiller mentioned our non-fatal shootings for our parishes a whole for this show

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we're down 22%, which is a significant amount that helps us, you know,

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fight our crime, focusing on the groups that are responsible for the shootings

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and collecting every shell casing and entering it within NIB and within 24 to

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48 hours,

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those NIBAs are uploaded to generate investigative leads to show how that

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shell casing is connected to other cases from crime scenes.

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And so that's been a huge success for us being able to do it in almost real

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time

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and putting forth our investigative efforts from both agencies to identify

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those.

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How is this gun connected from the Sheriff's Office shooting

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to the Batoners Police Department shooting?

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And what's the common denominator?

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And if you're not communicating and working every day with your partners,

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those opportunities are missed.

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And on flip side, they haven't had our Louisiana State Police crime lab,

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our crime lab partners helping them prioritize and say, you know,

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this one, they're all important cases.

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They don't understand that, okay?

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But we can't expedite every case.

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And so when we talk with Hiller, we're a suspect and he looks at, you know,

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another prosecution, they may have on this defendant and we say, okay,

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this is kind of our trial, this one needs to be a priority and get him off the

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streets

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and give Hiller a prosecutable case, you know, from not only the information we

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gather,

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but from the DNA result, from swabbing those cases and send them off the boaty

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to help us process.

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We look at jail bookings twice a day and we have an assistant DA that's

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familiar

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with the system in the process.

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She puts out a gun review on every gun case.

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And we're talking about 12 a day and also major crimes cases.

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And she does this thorough review through the form that we use and it tells us,

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as a DA immediately before the bond is set, this person has been involved with

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weapons

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before.

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And in this case, we need to follow up on NIBIN because we believe he's

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involved

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with other shootings.

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Also, this is the case where we need to make sure we swab the defendant,

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not only the defendant, say it's a car stop, but the other two that are in the

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car,

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it's someone claim ownership of the weapon.

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Do we ask them questions?

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Why would your DNA be on this gun?

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Have you touched it anytime recently?

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So all of those things are quickly assembled in a package before the defendant

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is able

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to bond out of jail and that we're able to hold those that are necessary to be

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held.

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To follow up on that, in addition to that scientific work, we also have a crime

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strategies

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unit that looks at social media because these people do speak and talk.

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And we also are able through a system that we employed with LSU, the university

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We have 10 senior criminology students.

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They also listen not only to the social media, but jail phone calls that oft

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entimes we may

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miss a gun or miss a Glock switch and they tell us in the jail phone call where

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to find

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it and then to share it from the police, follow up with further activities

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since then.

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That's what I love is that it's not just focused on the laboratory information

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that's

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provided.

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It's put together as a full story to build your case.

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So we've heard D.A. more speak to gun crimes and we've heard Major Todd Morris

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reference

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drug crimes and also homicides.

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Erica, are there other case types that you're focusing on in the state to fight

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crime?

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Yes.

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So we've had an uptick the last several years in homicides and sexual assault

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type cases.

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So that is really what we're focused on internally in the lab.

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A couple of years ago, Hillary reached out to us and asked us, "Hey, can we

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meet and talk

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about outsourcing some case work?"

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At that time, we were not in compliance with FBAQAS 17 standard, but we said, "

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What can

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we do to help?"

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And with this gun initiative, it has to do with CODIS eligibility, what type of

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cases

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we were able to ship off and send to BODI.

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So we had the guns had come to the lab already swabbed or either were swabbed

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at the laboratory.

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We also had a reference sample, some of which were processed.

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And so decisions were made with grant funding that was supplied to outsource

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those cases

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to BODI technology to be able to move the gun type cases forward in our process

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since

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we're really focusing on the homicides and rapes.

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So what people don't always realize is that forensic testing, the resources are

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limited.

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So how do you prioritize which samples you send to the lab or you move forward

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with?

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Is it in any way based on what's CODIS eligible and not CODIS eligible?

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To an extent, yes.

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We do have evidence receiving policy, independent on if it's a party one type

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of case, which

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is an offense against a person, typically a homicide or rape, and then a party

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two type

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case, which is like a burglary or theft or weapons.

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So we prioritize internally the homicides and the rapes, the oldest type of

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case to the

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newest is how we would typically triage case work.

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Obviously, we want to work the cases that are unknowns and if we have a profile

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that

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is eligible to CODIS to be able to put that into the database so we can get a

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hit so we

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can give that investigative lead to our local law enforcement agency so they

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can go and

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potentially get that person off the streets.

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So really, we're working more on a priority type of case request with the

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agencies due

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to our backlog.

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So if they have a case where there is a non-suspect because maybe it's a case

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that's going to

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court for prosecution, they need us to work something and we have known suspect

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reference

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samples, we would prioritize that kind of case.

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So Erin, we know that Bodie supports this program by directly working the cases

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What else is Bodie doing in the background to try to help support programs like

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this?

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Yeah, so Bodie is a service provider.

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We're here to serve our crime lab partners, our law enforcement partners.

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So whether that's taking backlog cases off the hands of the state labs that

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they can

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focus on the priorities like Erica just mentioned or R&D to advance

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technologies that will better

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meet the needs of what law enforcement needs right now, there's an increase in

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gun crimes

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nationwide and so we're now focusing a lot of our R&D efforts to improve the

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technology

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in that area and be able to apply it to projects such as this.

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So in 2021 we launched a new proprietary Bodie extraction method designed for

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improving

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success rates from shell casings and on this project now we are seeing great

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success rates

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that we're happy to see over 90% of the cases coming here from DA Moore and

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Major Morris

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are yielding DNA, they're proceeding on for DNA testing rather than stopping at

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quant

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and about 75% now are producing investigative information with comparable DNA

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profiles.

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So it sounds like that the approaches that you've chosen have been very

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effective but

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what challenges did you make implementing these transformative actions and how

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did you overcome

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those?

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One of the challenges was explaining to our uniform patrol deputies and

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emergency police

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officers you know the importance of locating every shell casing because we,

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because damn

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okay I've got one or two or I got three and we know that a shot spotter said we

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had 20

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rounds go off.

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Let's try to find all 20 rounds so we can make sure that we're swabbing each of

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those

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rounds for our best chance to get a profile that's going to help us and

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generate investigative

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lead and so we had to let them see the whole picture because the uniform patrol

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person

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or uniform patrol deputy you know they're going from one call to the next call

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and then

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now we have them just making sure that they spend a lot of time collecting all

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those shell

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casings because it's vital to us because the amount of investigative leads that

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generates

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just last year in 2023 all of our nybin entries generated 148 investigative

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leads.

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Okay that's a lot of investigative leads with those shell casings are connected

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to another

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shooting and so we've seen great results from that by focusing and collecting

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every shell

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casing we have one person at the office that runs every ATF trest on every gun

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to make

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sure that's done immediately all the nybin entries test fires are done within

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48 hours

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and so that's crucial to help us generate that lead as quickly as we can and it

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's once

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again it's a approach that takes all of our partners.

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Through the cooperation with nybin and DNA testing we were able to solve last

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year four

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murders that we have never had any understanding that this person was involved

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in the shooting

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and it's because of the men and women on the street that maybe just found this

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one person

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in a traffic accident with a weapon and they seized the weapon for whatever

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reason we took

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that weapon and we traced it we nybin did we shot it and lo and behold that

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shell case

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came back to a murder and that would never have been done because that's a

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routine gun

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that is not involved with a felon it's a regular person but lo and behold he's

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a killer

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and you have all of the evidence there but for all of this together in any of

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the DNA

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on top is huge and what body is done with the new shell case testing for us has

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been

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I learned about it from Tabitha and we had two particular cases that we wanted

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to have

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this done for us and they're very important and it's worth it on those cases to

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seize

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those shells and send them to get the best chance you can.

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I think your rate is around 70% whereas regular work in the lab may not be that

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high and your

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extraction method is great and that was has solved one serial murder killer for

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us which

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was a head our city on edge but for that technology.

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That's a great segue into the next question so we know that any type of

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technology to

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implement it is expensive so how did you obtain funding to implement a lot of

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these programs?

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Well we've forced them we had some the city parish had some funds that we

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received from

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the covid that we got to help offset all the struggles that our parishes and

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our counties

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and our states were different having them covid and so the mayor's office set

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aside

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you know a certain amount of those dollars to help expedite the case because

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they saw

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the benefit and the need also to resist a community effort as in the community

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issue

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that we're trying to deal with and so to be able to take some of those funds

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that we

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were given from the federal government and be able to prioritize that we're

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going to

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set aside two hundred fifty thousand dollars for testing expedited testing with

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boating

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and focusing on gun crimes because the gun crimes and our non-faders are

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drivers.

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So Erin D.A. Moore spoke to the need for faster turnaround times and quicker

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processing.

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How has boating made any changes to support programs like this that are

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requesting faster

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turnaround times in the reporting and their processing?

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Yeah, I think that's a really important point and as D.A. Moore said as they

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see more success

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there's more demand the more success we see there is more demand and there's an

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expectation

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of a faster turnaround time in order for this to be effective.

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So that's something that we've been focusing on in increasing our capacity.

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So kind of twofold you mentioned analyst positions and there's a lot of

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training that goes into

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that so we've been focused on adding more analysts and more capacity to our lab

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and also

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working on our process improvements to make this a higher throughput process.

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As we brought this online it was a very specialized technology it's a manual

16:45

tedious process

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to get these kinds of success rates and now we're focused on trying to make

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this a higher

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throughput process a more affordable process with a quick turnaround time so

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that we can

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expand this testing and still meet the turnaround time expectations.

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Also think that as a nation and then as a particular city and state I'm not

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sure that

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we've yet made a priority public safety.

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So things are not like they used to be where you could pay a load of money for

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Dustin.

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There was a fingerprint when D.A. was not around.

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It was easy, it was simple.

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Now things have become more complicated and not only in the D.A. realm or the

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shell casing

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realm but cell phone download, body camera, all of this has increased the

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expense for

17:29

us to sufficiently arrest and prosecute people that are causing harm to the

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community and

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less than until we're able to raise the funds or seek public safety first.

17:41

Either as your city or your state or the United States to make it a political

17:45

priority we're

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going to be in this situation it's not going to get any better.

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So I think we have to reprioritize what we're thinking.

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It's just like the fentanyl increase that we're seeing our fentanyl deaths

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triple our gun

18:00

charges.

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Has it been made a public priority or a public health issue?

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It's sort of one line with that.

18:07

So I think the more you pay attention to an issue particularly DNA and cell

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phones and

18:12

others like this it's going to continue to be an issue and we have to when we

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talk about

18:18

funding everyone needs money for anything that there is but I think this should

18:23

be a

18:23

priority.

18:24

I don't know if any of the cases I have closed that have been involved in this

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collaboration

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but is there any one particular case that sticks out that's been a success

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through this

18:35

program?

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I know you said that through the guns you've it's led you to four homicide

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suspects.

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Those homicides were last year so we're still waiting for that to go through

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the pipeline

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but just the regular gun cases that we prioritized to send to body it's

18:50

information that we would

18:51

not have had before that we couldn't move forward one way or the other and when

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the

18:56

DNA came back in very few cases that was there was nothing that could be done.

19:01

Those cases were resolved in the appropriate manner based on the other evidence

19:05

Those they came back with DNA that's this defendant's DNA when he said I've

19:08

never touched

19:09

the gun that's a whole different case he pleads guilty or goes to trial and

19:13

faces the consequence.

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So just having the information.

19:16

Look it also helps a defendant if it's not his DNA it's not his DNA and our job

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is to

19:23

be fair to everyone and so it is not only affects law enforcement and the

19:27

public and

19:28

prosecutors but defense lawyers and community in general so I think it's just

19:33

necessary

19:33

both ways.

19:34

Okay so what's next for the state of Louisiana and East Baton Rouge Parish?

19:40

What further advancements technologies are you looking at?

19:44

I know you mentioned fentanyl is a focus area is there anything else?

19:48

We are we are because of the number of gun crimes we are trying to open a gun

19:54

court as

19:55

I mentioned and so I think that's our next step how can we fund that program

20:00

from the

20:01

beginning how can we make sure that we have DNA testing cell phone downloads to

20:06

support

20:06

conviction I mean the turnaround time is going to have to be quick and it's

20:10

going to be

20:11

difficult on top of the burden that we already have but I think people are

20:16

really getting

20:17

tired of the violence and the gun violence and we see it all over the place and

20:25

it's

20:25

a next step that we're going to take and hopefully with the partnerships that

20:28

we have here we'll

20:29

expand and it's going to all be about data and the numbers that we see or don't

20:34

see and then look at the recidivism rate who's coming back after being treated or

20:39

being

20:40

convicted will be a telltale sign.

20:43

So one of the things at the crime lab that we've been dealing with is sexual

20:47

assault

20:47

kits and how can we improve and make that process even more efficient so right

20:52

now we

20:52

have our serologists or our screeners that screen them and they will actually

20:56

take the

20:57

cases into the lab to extract them there's been a movement of kind of going

21:01

away from

21:01

presumptive testing and testing all the items on the front end and making

21:04

determinations

21:05

at quant.

21:06

So our current captain at the crime lab right now we just had a collaborative

21:10

group effort

21:11

of all of the directors of all the crime laboratories in Louisiana come

21:15

together to talk about

21:16

how are they processing sexual assault kits what are the differences and how we

21:20

're handling

21:20

that from crime lab to crime lab and how can we maybe come together and do it

21:24

more of the

21:25

same and talk about the methods that were having in place at our laboratories

21:29

to be

21:30

more efficient.

21:32

Also there's a sexual assault kit tracking program and that's new to our state

21:35

with the

21:35

current legislation that just passed last year.

21:38

The other new technologies that are on the horizon is rapid DNA with crime

21:43

scene and I

21:43

know that Major Morris can speak more to the booking rapid.

21:46

Yeah, no I've been real excited about rapid DNA and we implemented the first

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case in the

21:52

country at rapid DNA at the time of booking and collecting that and I've been

21:55

working

21:55

with the state police crime lab on an investigative lead project with involving

21:59

rapid DNA and

21:59

I just really think that's going to help benefit us in certain cases to be able

22:04

to get generator

22:05

profile for rapid DNA within 90 minutes to help generate investigative lead and

22:09

that is

22:09

that it's all about no but I think it's another tool with technology that we

22:12

got to utilize

22:13

though for certain cases they'll help us generate that lead within 90 minutes

22:18

to solve that

22:18

crime quicker and that's what it's all about because we know if we identify

22:21

that individual

22:22

we can make a good case for a killer he's going to be able to prosecute that

22:27

case, get

22:27

an invasion, we get that individual off the street much quicker and we talk

22:31

about metrics

22:31

and data driven and that's going to save money we look at what's always about

22:35

funding to

22:36

talk about funding and the quicker we can identify suspect get that individual

22:40

off the

22:40

streets it saves money from the aspect from the uniform patrol guide to a

22:44

victim of the

22:44

crime to the prosecution time to the amount of time wearing tear on a vehicle

22:49

dispatch

22:50

time at the crime lab I mean you look at all the totality that and we look at

22:54

call saving

22:55

measures in the end and we think rapid to be able to help with that and just

23:00

identify

23:01

that individual much more quickly. Do you think that it will reduce the number

23:05

of samples that you'll have to send for the more traditional processing? Well

23:10

we've discussed

23:11

that we're still going to collect two swabs okay but the key is the time

23:15

involved, you

23:16

know, Hiller needs to you know within maybe six months for a trial okay if we

23:21

use it

23:21

as an investigative lead within 90 minutes or that day that we're working a

23:25

major crime

23:26

to lead us to that individual give them off the street and the crime lab is not

23:29

pressured

23:30

hey I'm not calling Erica hey I really need this ASAP now now we have several

23:34

months to get it

23:35

done in process because we had the rapid hit first it generated investigative

23:38

lead and now the

23:39

traditional DNA can still be processed but there's not the pressure from the

23:43

crime lab thing oh my

23:44

gosh now I've got to put this in line Todd just asked me for another one now he

23:47

wants this one

23:48

process you know so I think it's going to benefit uh collectively as a whole

23:52

from that. So I think

23:53

that uh uh so I think it allows him probable cause right for the restaurant

23:57

that we base

23:58

us for an arrest to put someone in jail and then I knew now I have one that is

24:03

viable that I can

24:03

ask the crime lab for beyond the reason without I need your testing and so I

24:08

think it's going to

24:08

narrow the focus down on what we want and what we need. Right and for though

24:12

the three of us that

24:14

have worked in a laboratory although prioritization is definitely necessary for

24:18

public safety at this

24:20

point in time because we haven't had the access to 90 minutes in rapid

24:24

technology. We do know that

24:26

prioritizing and pulling one case out it does impact your efficiency so it will

24:33

help and assist in

24:34

that way as well do you think? Yeah I do think that whenever you have a case

24:39

that needs a prior

24:40

new prioritized um it's up to the supervisors they triage it so who's going in

24:44

our case work

24:45

cycle appropriately and um so you're taking one from the back and putting it to

24:49

the front but

24:49

it's all about communication and keeping it organized um if you're keep doing

24:53

these one offs on the

24:54

side it can kind of disrupt the process so as long as we keep the lines of

24:57

communication open we're

24:59

able to keep it kind of organized within our laboratory process and move it

25:03

right along

25:03

with the rest of the train we can hopefully get results in a more timely

25:07

fashion. Aaron you

25:09

mentioned bode extraction which is the process that bode uses on fired show cas

25:13

ings and it also

25:14

uses it on rootless hairs could you tell us a little bit more about that

25:18

process and what changes

25:19

were made to increase the success on these sample types? Sure yeah we brought

25:24

this procedure outline

25:25

in 2021 but it wasn't a completely new procedure a lot of the research that

25:30

went into it was actually

25:32

first used on bode's proprietary bone extraction that we've been using since

25:37

our testing on the

25:38

world trade center and really this extraction method focuses on improved

25:43

recovery of the more

25:45

degraded shorter fragment DNA so we recover more of that that in in prior

25:49

methods would have been

25:51

washed away and that's coupled on the spent shell casing specifically it's

25:55

coupled with a

25:55

specialized sampling method that goes into the extraction so we're using the

26:00

ATF method which

26:01

is the rinse and swab method and that's where the entire shell casing is rinsed

26:05

with a buffer

26:06

that binds the metal ions that would normally degrade the DNA further so by

26:11

binding those it

26:12

increases our our recovery it reduces the further degradation and inhibition in

26:17

the process so we

26:18

use this rinse and swab method where the entire rinse and then a swab of the

26:22

casing is then put

26:23

into our bode extraction and like I said in that method we're able to recover

26:28

more of the degraded

26:29

DNA fragments so Erin with these changes in the process how has it impacted the

26:35

success rate on

26:36

these sample types? Yeah that's a great question we've seen a really increased

26:40

success rate since

26:41

going online with this method and before we had this method online we weren't

26:45

often recommending

26:46

that this sample type even be tested you know just knowing that the likelihood

26:50

of success was

26:51

quite low but our validation showed that we're getting 10 times the DNA

26:55

recovery now with this

26:56

method and what we've seen since being online with this procedure in real cas

27:00

ework for the past

27:01

couple of years is that we're getting codis eligible profiles from about 50

27:05

percent of the cases

27:06

or comparable DNA profiles and when more samples can be submitted it really

27:11

increases the chance

27:12

of success on cases that have had at least five shell casings submitted our

27:18

success rate of obtaining

27:20

a codis eligible profile has been about 90 percent. So Erica we know that codis

27:26

eligible profiles

27:28

there is no need for a suspect standard or a person of interest standard for

27:32

comparison.

27:33

Does the collaboration work to help get you those persons of interest reference

27:39

DNA standards

27:40

to compare to those cases that are not eligible for codis? Yes absolutely

27:46

especially with the

27:47

gun initiative and the program that we did with the outsourcing of the cases

27:50

that Hiller mentioned

27:51

earlier when it comes to codis eligibility there are certain criteria that have

27:57

to be met for profiles

27:59

obtained from a weapon or a firearm the eligibility is critical and so you can

28:04

't always put those

28:05

profiles after you swab a gun into codis. So if you have a known suspect and

28:08

submitting those

28:09

reference samples to the laboratory or to the outsource lab we're able to

28:13

obtain a profile from the

28:15

gun or the cartridge cases and then you have the reference swabs and then you

28:18

can make that comparison

28:19

and they're either included or excluded depending on the yield and the results

28:23

of the DNA testing.

28:26

One thing I'd like to explain to you is it's very important about the crime

28:28

strategy in it

28:29

report that Sonia sends out she's phenomenal and she usually lives in National

28:33

Guard

28:33

personnel and they do a great job but we take that report and we make sure it

28:38

goes to our

28:38

uniform patrol. Okay we just don't keep it from the administration standpoint

28:41

or for our captain

28:42

standpoint it goes to every deputy because we want them to look at that scene

28:45

in their specific

28:46

areas at the Pacific Times what's taking place and allow them to because you

28:50

won't buy in from

28:51

everybody in your agency and they want to feel a part of something okay. You

28:55

know the minister

28:55

I'll just go to this area because we said so that's not the way it works you

28:58

know this is a team

28:59

approach and it's important for us to disseminate that out to everybody. You

29:03

have to say you can

29:03

look at themselves they look at the graphs you look at the charts they look at

29:06

the hot spots

29:07

and that is a vital for them to to embrace their areas where they know these

29:10

individuals too because

29:11

they know the areas where they're having these shots fired at and so you get

29:15

them to buy into

29:16

focus their attention that more so than just being directed there by their

29:19

captain of their

29:20

lieutenant hey we're going to focus here today and get the initiatives from

29:23

them themselves and

29:24

it's really important to do that. And there's always a data driven police

29:28

officer or deputy

29:29

per squad that's the one that you really want to get it to and then when he

29:33

does something really

29:34

good then the others catch on but I think what we've also learned from that is

29:39

that we do a really

29:40

bad job of telling officers because of the business wherein they did a great

29:45

job and hey we appreciate

29:46

it. So we're now trying to follow up with emails to the individual officers

29:50

that hey that one gun

29:52

that you took off that non-felling person we shouted that shell case came back

29:56

to this you should be

29:57

proud that you did your job and we send that along to the chief as well so that

30:01

person has a

30:02

pick me up and says I want to go get it and do even more because it is a tough

30:07

business that

30:08

we're in now and given getting that recognition is very helpful. It helps to

30:12

motivate them that

30:14

they're impacting beyond that one case that they're impacting the entire

30:17

mission.

30:18

100% correct and it's really about buy-in okay and they see the results of them

30:23

swabbing that

30:23

they see the results of just collecting that gun from a traffic stop okay and

30:26

then we give them the

30:28

NIBIN report and to show them hey this is going to connect it to one two three

30:32

four cases just by you

30:33

initiating a traffic stop whatever probable cause led to that and allowed them

30:37

to be able to seize

30:38

that appropriately and then us to be able to shoot it fire put it in a NIBIN

30:41

and they see those

30:42

results you know and it's important that they know that right you know on the

30:45

back end.

30:46

So we've talked about looking at other agencies and the intelligence program

30:52

that they had set up

30:53

and then the availability of funding that it motivated the collaboration but

30:57

was there a particular

30:58

case that maybe sparked you to want to come together and start addressing

31:02

crimes this way?

31:03

Yes so going back to visiting Denver and the work that they were doing with

31:09

shell casing and

31:10

the research that was out there at the time wasn't really promising for the

31:15

yield but they were

31:17

excited about it and we were mindful of that and then a recall Baton Rouge had

31:24

a serial killer

31:25

prior to the the COVID outbreak and there were homeless people that were being

31:31

killed and I think

31:31

the Baton Rouge police had three murders and the sheriff's office had one all

31:36

within two weeks

31:37

and you can imagine and these were multiple shell cages that are used at these

31:42

different crime

31:42

scenes you can imagine Baton Rouge is on alert also particularly the African

31:47

American community

31:48

because they were all black victims and we had no idea at the time who was

31:54

doing this so we were

31:55

really on high alert. I recall one murder that occurred right outside of the

32:00

LSU campus

32:01

where person was gunned down with multiple shell casings and there was this one

32:06

technician one

32:07

the crime scene detective that was working the case and I had prior life had

32:13

been a crime scene

32:15

investigator and she was using one swab to swab multiple casings that were in

32:20

different

32:20

fields of one of shell casings and I asked her you know why were you doing this

32:25

she had read the

32:26

same articles and said I think I have a better chance of receiving a DNA sample

32:31

if I do it this way

32:33

so we said okay and then eventually that gets sent to the crime lab and the

32:38

crime lab

32:38

learnable comes off with a DNA profile we've never had that before and here we

32:42

have a DNA

32:43

profile and then right after that we checked the cameras around LSU and it led

32:48

us to a car

32:48

then that individual did something with that car that was captured on video we

32:53

ran the DNA got his

32:54

sample he had a worn out for him we took a sample of his DNA because of the

32:59

word he had not for a

33:00

murder but for another matter that was minor then matching the two up to his

33:05

DNA and you have a

33:06

serial killer so that's one at that point we said this is really great

33:12

technology but again the yield

33:14

is very low and then fast forward to meeting you and when you came to Baton

33:18

Rouge and told us

33:19

about the new extraction method a few years ago we're really excited because we

33:24

had two cases at

33:25

the time that were pending that were horrendous cases where the victim are

33:30

defended really didn't

33:31

know each other it's a four-year-old on a college co-ed killed at different

33:35

times and that's when it

33:37

really let us know that hey we have a partner that we can use that the yield

33:41

could be 70 to 90 percent

33:43

if we're able to collect it correctly so we quickly then disseminated that

33:47

information to the

33:48

sheriff and the Baton Rouge police that hey on certain cases we may want to

33:53

keep shell casings aside collect them separately on the your direction send them to

33:59

the lab and we

34:00

may get a much better result now although a DNA on a shell case of won't say

34:04

that that person

34:05

pulled the trigger it's an investigative lead it's credible information and

34:10

someone has to answer

34:11

questions if you're able to run them in codis and and get their their DNA so

34:16

from that point on we

34:18

have really been interested in this process and unfortunately we would love to

34:23

send every shell

34:24

casing here in a boatie to do that but can't at this time hopefully that will

34:28

get

34:29

become easier and more cost effective but it is valuable for us in particular

34:35

cases

34:35

yeah so we don't have a technology online yet at our laboratory due to the

34:41

backlog and trying to

34:42

hire the personnel and and train them to be able to do the basic DNA case work

34:47

but with

34:47

Hiller's gun initiative what we've been able to do is when guns are swabbed we

34:52

had those swabs

34:53

from weapons themselves we've already had the reference samples in house and

34:57

with this initiative

34:58

and collaborative effort we've come together to talk about what cases can we

35:01

send for his agency

35:03

along with east Baton Rouge Sheriff's office and so we came together as a group

35:06

to be able to outsource

35:08

those cases of swaps from guns and if we had any cases in the meantime the

35:12

cartridge cases was also

35:14

then sent to boatie technology yeah and that was great to have your site visit

35:18

and build that

35:19

relationship further with your lab because then that's now allowed us to expand

35:23

and be able to take

35:24

more cases as as you need we said it's all about the collaboration so it's how

35:29

it started and now

35:30

it's just the beginning I'm sure

35:39

you

35:41

(buzzing)