Further Fallout from the Houston Crime Lab Scandal

The news that Houston Police Department has a DNA back­log is not sur­pris­ing at all. In fact it should be expected, con­sid­er­ing it was closed down for a sig­nif­i­cant period of time.

Seven years after the Houston Police Department crime lab scan­dal first broke, city offi­cials acknowl­edged this week that nearly 4,000 rape kits and other crime evi­dence remain untested for DNA.

What is more inter­est­ing about this arti­cle is the fol­low­ing com­ment from one of the online readers:

dna­truth wrote:
HPD DNA lab will not be able to attract qual­i­fied ana­lysts after what they have done to two best ana­lysts last year in the name of pro­fi­ciency test­ing inves­ti­ga­tion. Essentially, work­ing at HPD DNA lab is a death spell to a bright pro­fes­sional career and this is com­mon knowl­edge in foren­sic DNA com­mu­nity. One of the ana­lysts who was mis­treated moved on to an even sig­nif­i­cantly more chal­leng­ing posi­tion. Hence HPD DNA lab is not only a dis­as­ter for the pub­lic but also to ana­lysts who really are com­mit­ted to their work. Almost every­one there wants to be a man­ager and not do the grunt work. Best wishes for the upcom­ing regional lab

Hopefully the lab isn’t being unduly hard on the new employ­ees of the Houston Police Department. Certainly they should be treated with the same respect and given the same fair treat­ment as other qual­i­fied DNA ana­lysts across the country.

Read the whole story about the Houston PD DNA back­log.