Follow-up: Detroit PD Crime Lab shut down.

Original arti­cle posted here.

Detroit Police shut down crime lab
George Hunter / The Detroit News

DETROIT — Police offi­cials have shut down the department’s crime lab after sev­eral errors were found in evi­dence from shoot­ing cases.

The results of a five-month audit of the Detroit Police Firearms lab­o­ra­tory released Thursday, revealed a “shock­ing level of incom­pe­tence” in inves­ti­ga­tions into cases involv­ing bal­lis­tic evi­dence, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said.

The “appalling” work of Detroit’s firearm inves­ti­ga­tors means there could be vio­lent crim­i­nals who are still on the loose, Worthy said.

“We have no idea how many crim­i­nals have gone uncharged as a result” of the prob­lems in the crime lab, Worthy said.

The find­ings uncov­ered mis­takes “so severe as to demon­strate a sys­temic prob­lem in all dis­ci­plines within the crime lab and requires dras­tic action to ensure the integrity of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in Wayne County,” Worthy said.

A ran­dom sam­pling of 200 cases revealed “erro­neous or false find­ings by Detroit Police Department tech­ni­cians in one out of every 10 cases audited,” Worthy said.

In April, the Detroit firearms lab was shut down. But Thursday’s announce­ment stops all lab work for the depart­ment. All cases will be sent to the Michigan State Police lab­o­ra­tory. That will cause even fur­ther delays to the already huge back­log of cases await­ing foren­sic eval­u­a­tion, said Capt. Michael Thomas, head of the State Police Forensics Division.

All employ­ees of Detroit’s crime lab will be reas­signed while a more thor­ough exam­i­na­tion into what caused the prob­lems takes place, Police Chief James Barren said.

The prob­lems could poten­tially open the door for dozens of appeals, Worthy said. “It’s a huge can of worms,” she said.

After a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor in April brought to light mis­takes in sev­eral cases, for­mer Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings shut down the lab, and the Michigan State Police con­ducted an audit, while the prosecutor’s office reviewed cases involv­ing con­vic­tions based on gun evi­dence going back a year.

Now, Worthy said a team made up of her­self, Barren and Michigan State Police inves­ti­ga­tors will deter­mine the scope of the prob­lem. Thomas said it could take up to a year just to deter­mine how much work has to be done.