The Fenty administration is wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars per month and jeopardizing public safety by dragging its feet on building a DNA laboratory, a key D.C. councilman will charge today.
Phil Mendelson, one of team Fenty’s most outspoken critics, is scheduled to open hearings today into progress on building the city’s crime lab, a massive public project that has dragged on for years.
“It’s not just bricks for bureaucrats,” Mendelson, D-at large, told The Examiner ahead of today’s hearing. “This is about public safety.”
D.C. has set aside tens of millions of federal and local dollars to build itself what officials are promising will be a top-notch crime lab. But the administration scrapped early plans to move the lab to 225 Virginia Ave. SE despite a rent-free lease for the first year of the space.
The city now plans to move the Metropolitan Police Department’s 1st District headquarters to Virginia Avenue and put the lab in the old 1st District headquarters. In the meantime, though, the rent-free provision of the Virginia Avenue lease has expired and the city is paying more than $560,000 per month for “an empty building,” Mendelson said.
“There’s always an excuse,” Mendelson said. “They won’t even admit there’s a delay.”
Fenty’s spokeswoman didn’t respond to recent requests for comment. But Fenty has repeatedly insisted that the DNA lab is his “top public safety priority” and that D.C.-based technicians will help to catch bad guys within three years.
Meanwhile, D.C. continues to rely on the FBI lab at Quantico, which investigates samples from around the world. As a result, thousands of unsolved homicides and rapes remain on D.C.’s books.
Also on today’s schedule is an inquiry into efforts to replace D.C.’s dilapidated evidence warehouse. As reported by The Examiner last year, the city’s inspector general has blasted police leadership for allowing conditions in the warehouse to crumble.
