Georgia Bureau of Investigations to Close Labs

The major con­cern with local law enforce­ment seems to be the extra time and expense involved in trans­port­ing evi­dence all the way back to Atlanta. Why doesn’t the GBI lab sys­tem set up a cen­tral loca­tion (one of the larger law enforce­ment agen­cies) with one GBI evi­dence employee there to receive evi­dence once a day, and then trans­port it all back to Atlanta in a sin­gle vehi­cle? Saves the tax pay­ers in Georgia the extra gas, and salary of hav­ing law enforce­ment peo­ple off the streets, and play­ing the evi­dence trans­porta­tion game.

The GBI sys­tem is a “flag­ship” lab for their choice in Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS). You would think it would be easy to have a remote loca­tion that ONLY tracks chain-of-custody “in the field”.

Local law enforce­ment uses the Summerville facil­ity to drop off evi­dence. Now, the trip will be to south­east Atlanta.

“As far as hard cash, it’s not going to cost us more,” said Cedartown Assistant Chief Jamie Newsome. “It is cer­tainly going to be a more frus­trat­ing trip.”

Rockmart Police Chief Keith Sorrells said it would cost the city more to go to Atlanta rather than the regional lab in Summerville.

“It will take a half a day to do that now. You’ve got the expense of per­son­nel, vehi­cle wear and tear, and gas. It would about dou­ble the expense,” he said.

Read the whole story in The Fish Wrap here.