<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:30327.wais]
CSI WASHINGTON: DOES THE DISTRICT NEED ITS OWN CRIME LAB?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 22, 2006
__________
Serial No. 109-184
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
DARRELL E. ISSA, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JON C. PORTER, Nevada C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina Columbia
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania ------
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio (Independent)
BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
David Marin, Staff Director
Lawrence Halloran, Deputy Staff Director
Benjamin Chance, Clerk
Michael Galindo, Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 22, 2006............................... 1
Statement of:
Wainstein, Ken, U.S. attorney, District of Columbia; Joseph
A. DiZinno, D.D.S., Director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation Laboratory, Federal Bureau of Investigation;
Charles H. Ramsey, chief of police, Metropolitan Police
Department; Edward D. Reiskin, D.C. deputy mayor for public
safety and justice; and Valencia Mohammed, District of
Columbia resident.......................................... 11
DiZinno, Joseph A........................................ 18
Mohammed, Valencia....................................... 41
Ramsey, Charles H........................................ 25
Reiskin, Edward D........................................ 32
Wainstein, Ken........................................... 11
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 62
Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Virginia, prepared statement of................... 3
DiZinno, Joseph A., D.D.S., Director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation Laboratory, Federal Bureau of Investigation,
prepared statement of...................................... 20
Mohammed, Valencia, District of Columbia resident, prepared
statement of............................................... 44
Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Delegate in Congress from the
District of Columbia, prepared statement of................ 8
Ramsey, Charles H., chief of police, Metropolitan Police
Department, prepared statement of.......................... 28
Reiskin, Edward D., D.C. deputy mayor for public safety and
justice, prepared statement of............................. 35
Ruppersberger, Hon. C.A. Dutch, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Maryland, prepared statement of.......... 64
Wainstein, Ken, U.S. attorney, District of Columbia, prepared
statement of............................................... 14
CSI WASHINGTON: DOES THE DISTRICT NEED ITS OWN CRIME LAB?
----------
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2006
House of Representatives,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Davis, Cummings, and Norton.
Staff present: David Marin, staff director; Larry Halloran,
deputy staff director; Keith Ausbrook, chief counsel; Anne
Marie Turner and Steve Castor, counsels; Victoria Proctor,
senior professional staff member; Michael Galindo and Benjamin
Chance, clerks; Michael Sazonov, research assistant; Brian
McNicoll, communicatiions director; Kim Trinca, minority
counsel; Earley Green, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa,
minority assistant clerk.
Chairman Tom Davis. Good morning and welcome. Today's
hearing will consider the creation of a full service forensics
lab in the District of Columbia. Today the District of Columbia
relies on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's crime lab to
handle all of its forensic capabilities with the exception of
fingerprints and firearms. The sharing of resources by the
Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI has shown both
progress and promise. But over time technological developments
in DNA testing, new and old case needs and shifting priorities
caused by terrorism and homeland security concerns have
strained the ability to satisfy the interests of all parties.
The relationship between MPD and the FBI has been strong and
beneficial, but perhaps the time has come for D.C. to have its
own forensic resources. According to the Metropolitan Police
Department Web site as of September 21st, the total number of
murders for this year is 124. Since January of this year,
homicides are down 11 percent due in large part to the crime
emergency declared 73 days ago, but violent crime is up 4
percent with the increase mostly in robberies and sexual
assaults. In fact, it's my understanding that if a woman is
raped in D.C. and there is no suspect, the MPD will complete a
rape kit but will not perform DNA testing on the evidence
collected from the kit. Additionally, there's no data base in
which to handle the DNA collected which other jurisdictions
have found instrumental in solving crimes, in identifying
serial murders and rapists. As a father of two daughters, I
find this alarming. If D.C. had the resources for such a data
base, would MPD have been able to find the killer of Valencia
Mohammed's son? Ms. Mohammed is here today to talk about her
personal experience as a mother of two sons who were killed by
gun violence in D.C. and to give us her perspective of the need
for a D.C. crime lab.
In 2003, the FBI crime lab moved from FBI headquarters in
downtown Washington to Quantico, VA, out in my area, where it
currently provides forensic services free of charge for the
FBI, including terrorism and counterintelligence cases; any
duly constituted law enforcement agency in the United States
and even international cases. FBI Laboratory personnel provide
forensic examinations, technical support, expert witness
testimony and training to Federal, State and local law
enforcement agencies. FBI lab officials estimate that 30
percent of their overall caseload is from D.C. To help ease
this burden on the FBI lab, MPD and FBI signed a memorandum of
understanding in 2004. The MOU permits MPD employees to work in
the FBI lab and test evidence from D.C. cases. The FBI provides
those MPD employees with training, laboratory space, equipment,
quality assurance measurements and supplies. So far the results
of the memorandum of understanding are promising. It helps
relieve the burden on the FBI caseload caused by D.C. cases,
specifically in DNA testing. Turnaround time for non-D.C. cases
has been reduced slightly. The process time for trace evidence
has been reduced by half for non-D.C. cases. The results
suggest that if D.C. had its own full service crime lab for
processing DNA and trace evidence, both D.C. and FBI evidence
would be processed faster. If the District does get its own
lab, the unit handling MPD cases may be able to relocate to the
new D.C. lab.
Thus far, $11.5 million has been approved by the D.C.
Council for architectural and engineering designs for a new DNA
lab. The new lab would include forensic and DNA testing
functions, the city morgue and the Department of Health. In
addition, the facility would also include a biosafety
laboratory to address homeland security threats. The final
estimated price tag for the facility is $253 million. Over the
next 4 years, that's almost $175,000 a day.
In fiscal years 2005 and 2006 Congress appropriated $13
million for bioterrorism and a forensics lab in D.C. Slated to
open in 2010, city leaders are hoping the Federal Government
will take on 37 percent of the total cost while leaving the
District with the remaining 63 percent.
It must be difficult for a detective to tell a family
member whose loved one was just murdered that we have no leads,
no suspects and no evidence. But it's undoubtedly a dismal
affair for that same directive to tell a family, we'll have to
wait. We have all the evidence, we might have a suspect but we
just have to wait for evidence testing. If the District had its
own full service forensics lab, would these conversations still
occur? Would the crime statistics in D.C. go down? Would there
be a reduction in the number of cold cases?
Today's hearing will help determine the need, the means,
and the way to hopefully turn a cold case into a case closed.
I would now recognize the member from the District of
Columbia, Ms. Norton, for her opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0327.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0327.002
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Chairman Davis. I suspect
that Chairman Davis always selects these eye-catching names for
his hearings to create an impression that he is not having
another boring congressional hearing, hence today's hearing
entitled, ``CSI Washington: Does D.C. Need Its Own Crime Lab?''
Unlike CSI Miami or New York, all those other CSI cities, I
believe that this morning's hearing concerning the seldom
discussed but vital anti-crime forensic tool will show that the
question is rhetorical. Seriously, Chairman Davis knows that
I've been looking forward to this hearing in particular, which
I requested to be held this session, and he has my personal
gratitude for calling this hearing today.
The District declared a crime emergency shortly after
experiencing a crime spike this summer as crime began to
significantly increase nationwide. Although there never are any
quick fixes to achieve an immediate reduction in crime, Mayor
Williams and the City Council acted quickly to use several
tools at hand, including increased funds for police overtime. I
commend the city for apparently quelling the increase in
violent crime before it got out of hand.
Reducing local crime is always a local issue in our
country, and here is also a home rule issue as well. However,
there are natural and appropriate synergies between local and
Federal police work, and they were apparent long before the
advent of terrorism made these connections impossible to
ignore.
In 1992, Congress passed Public Law 102-397, a bill I
sponsored to permit the Capitol Police to patrol the
neighborhoods near the Capitol to stave off crime before it
makes its way here. The bill represented a new departure. By
permitting the Capitol Police to patrol outside the grounds and
the first few blocks around the Capitol, the legislation
provides for greater utilization of the well-trained police
force that protects Members of Congress and visitors by
assuring they are not victims of crime from surrounding
neighborhoods as they visit or leave the congressional campus.
Simultaneously, sections of the Capitol Hill community where
crime is typically higher than in similar neighborhoods also
received some protection in addition to the hard-pressed
Metropolitan Police Department officers who must also take
calls from throughout the neighborhood.
What I learned from the Capitol Police bill led me to do
the same in order to improve utilization of Federal police
officers around Federal facilities, I discovered that there
were 30 Federal law enforcement agencies here, Federal
enforcement agencies here attached to Federal agencies, with
authority to carry weapons and make arrests but unable to
perform typical police duties. Even traffic control in the
areas surrounding their immediate locations were necessary.
Federal agency police often called MPD or even 911 to report
crimes or to handle traffic accidents that occurred just
outside their Federal agency.
Federal police officers who made an occasional arrest
merely handed over the suspects to the MPD and did not even do
the paperwork, leaving the beleaguered MPD with hours of
processing that kept officers off our high-crime neighborhood
streets. As a result, I wrote the D.C. Police Coordination Act,
patterned on my earlier bill to expand Capitol Police
jurisdiction. The larger police coordination legislation allows
Federal agency police officers to assist MPD in crime
prevention and law enforcement activities in the District. By
patrolling areas surrounding their respective agencies, sharing
and donating equipment and supplies, sharing radio frequencies
and streamlining the processing of suspects. Policing by these
Federal officers does not involve going outside their Federal
mandate because crime prevention from the neighborhoods
surrounding the agency simultaneously serves both the Federal
Government and the District of Columbia.
I had these experiences in mind when I asked the Capitol
Police Board and the Capitol Police to temporarily assist the
Park Police, although both are Federal police, after five
muggings and assaults on the National Mall this summer. I
believe that this assistance was a natural extension of the
Capitol Police mission to protect Members of Congress and
visitors to the Capitol. I was particularly concerned when the
underfunded Park Police, which unlike the Capitol Police had
not grown, were meeting Park Police needs after the Mall
assaults by barring Park Police from Federal parks in the
District, Maryland and Virginia that are more dangerous than
the Mall. It made little sense to protect the Mall at the
expense of parks like Anacostia Park and Rock Creek Park. I
very much appreciate the decision of the Capitol Police Board
to allow this temporary assistance. I congratulate the Park
Police and all who assisted them for quickly cracking the Mall
cases. All of the perpetrators have pled guilty and are
incarcerated.
These experiences suggest that further analysis would
reveal similar cooperation between Federal and D.C. crime
efforts can be found. As to police, the District of Columbia
has more Federal and local police combined per capita than any
jurisdiction in the United States. The Nation's Capital is
saturated with Federal and local police, but historically has
had one of the highest crime rates in the United States. I
should have thought that would have gotten everybody to think
whether or not more police was the answer to our problems, if I
may say so.
Our focus on the crime lab today is about the closest
connection between Federal and D.C. crime-fighting efforts. I'm
enormously grateful to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to
allow the District to use its forensics crime lab at Quantico,
VA and particularly for the 2004 agreement that increases this
cooperation by permitting the Metropolitan Police Department to
perform some of the work at the lab. Today's witnesses will
testify concerning the benefits and sacrifices to both
agencies.
I must say, however, that my concern to help the District
quickly get its own crime lab is deeper than the need for
bricks, mortar and expertise. A forensic lab of one's own for a
city with a chronically high crime rate is a no-brainer. This
year I've been able to get $4.5 million to assist the District
now pending in the Appropriation Committee and last year got
almost $5 million in Federal funds to assist the District. And
that's not the first Federal funds that the District has gotten
for this effort.
I'm also, however, fascinated by the riddle of it all, and
my hypothesis that the forensic lab may be the key to further
reduction in final crime and violent crime in the District. And
I cannot put aside the crack epidemic of the early 1990's when
the homicide rate here was over 400--400 annually. These crime
highs were reflected throughout the entire country, but D.C.'s
crime rate topped that of most similar cities. Most disturbing
was the fact that when crime began to go down in virtually
every other big city, it remained high, very high here for
years, not months, but years longer. Moreover, the District's
crime rate has been among the highest in the country for
decades. The city's response typically has been to add more
officers. And consequently, we have long had the highest number
of local police per capita in the country.
Other typical recommendations include more community
policing and more police out of their cars, out of their
offices and on patrol. However, I must wonder whether better
crime fighting and prevention results in other cities are all a
matter of better policing. I doubt it. I'm interested in the
role that inadequate forensics in the past and delays in
getting to forensic evidence today may play in D.C.'s
persistently high crime rate.
When a vital anti-crime tool is inadequate or delayed for
decades, is there a significant effect on deterrence and
prevention? I do not know whether the effect of quick and
expert forensics on crime rates or convictions has been
investigated. However, I refuse to believe that the District of
Columbia is inherently a city with a greater propensity to
violent crime than New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other
big cities. We have never found a satisfactory explanation for
the District's persistently high rate of violent crime, and I
don't believe we have ever looked beyond the surface. A new
forensic lab is certain not to be yet another quick fix.
However, today's hearing will help clarify how improved
forensics can help in the search for answers that must be found
to this city's persistently high violent crime rate.
I am particularly grateful to today's witnesses for their
work in crime prevention in the District of Columbia, and very
much look forward to their testimony. I particularly welcome my
good friend Valencia Mohammed, who has not only suffered
directly from the absence of a crime lab and outstanding
forensics here, but also has helped educate and raise
consciousness among residents about the importance of forensics
to crime prevention.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton
follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0327.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0327.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0327.005
Chairman Tom Davis. Ms. Norton, thank you very much too.
Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements for the
record.
Before we recognize our very distinguished panel, I want to
congratulate Mr. Wainstein on his recent confirmation as the
assistant U.S. attorney for the National Security Division and
Dr. DiZinno on his promotion to the Director of the FBI
Investigation Laboratory. We'll now recognize our panel.
Ken Wainstein, the U.S. attorney from the District of
Columbia; Joseph A. DiZinno, who is the Director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation Laboratory at the FBI. Chief Charles
Ramsey is no stranger to this committee; he's the chief of
police at the Metropolitan Police Department. Chief, welcome
back, and thanks for the job you're doing. And Edward Reiskin,
the D.C. deputy mayor for public safety and justice. Thank you
for being with us. And Ms. Valencia Mohammed, who was referred
to in both of our lists. Thank you for being with us also.
We'll do this in one panel. It's our policy that we swear
in all witnesses before you testify. So if you could rise and
raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. Now your entire statements
are in the record. We have a light in front of you. It turns
green when you start. It turns yellow after 4 minutes, red
after 5. If when you see that yellow light on you can start to
wind down and try to stay close to 5 minutes, we'd appreciate
it, but you know your testimony is important and we appreciate
your being here.
Ken, thank you.
STATEMENTS OF KEN WAINSTEIN, U.S. ATTORNEY, DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA; JOSEPH A. DiZINNO, D.D.S., DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU
OF INVESTIGATION LABORATORY, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION;
CHARLES H. RAMSEY, CHIEF OF POLICE, METROPOLITAN POLICE
DEPARTMENT; EDWARD D. REISKIN, D.C. DEPUTY MAYOR FOR PUBLIC
SAFETY AND JUSTICE; AND VALENCIA MOHAMMED, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
RESIDENT
STATEMENT OF KEN WAINSTEIN
Mr. Wainstein. Morning, Chairman Davis, Congresswoman
Norton. I want to thank you for inviting me to testify today
about the very important topic of the idea of building a
forensic laboratory for the District of Columbia.
I testified here today about the idea of building a
laboratory from the perspective of the chief prosecutor of the
District of Columbia whose office is a primary consumer of the
forensics examinations that will be conducted by that
laboratory. I want to preface my remarks by saying that I
express no opinion on the source of any funding for such a
laboratory, but instead I would like to focus my comments on
the law enforcement benefits we would derive from having such a
laboratory dedicated to working on criminal cases in the
District of Columbia.
As you know, the U.S. Attorney's Office here in D.C. is
unique among all 94 such offices in that it serves as both the
Federal prosecutor as well as the local prosecutor or the local
D.A. for the Nation's Capital. In addition to our Federal
caseload, we initiate approximately 22,000 criminal cases each
year for prosecution in the Superior Court. Particularly in the
most serious cases or the more serious of those cases such as
homicides, nonfatal shootings, rapes, other sex offenses, drug
crimes, carjackings and the like, our prosecutors and their law
enforcement partners rely heavily on forensics evidence and
forensics examinations and analyses to solve those crimes and
to prove our cases beyond a reasonable doubt.
Currently these forensic analyses are conducted in several
places. Testing and fingerprint analysis are routinely
conducted by the MPD. The FBI tests DNA samples, hair and fiber
evidence and other trace evidence, and the DEA performs
chemical analysis on suspected drugs. These agencies have done
a tremendous job, I want to underscore that, they've done a
tremendous job doing these analyses. But this dispersed system
of evidence analysis can and does have an adverse impact on our
prosecution efforts.
For example, with regard to the DNA analysis conducted by
the FBI, our Superior Court cases go into the mix with the
FBI's own cases and those State cases from around the country
that are sent to the FBI. As a result, the processing of our
Superior Court cases by necessity has to be prioritized against
the competing needs of these other cases from around the
country. In addition, these workload realities mean that the
FBI can generally conduct DNA analysis in a case only after an
arrest has been made and a trial date is set. Thus, it's the
relatively rare occasion when we're able to make use of DNA
analysis in the investigative prearrest stages of our cases.
From my perspective, a forensics laboratory in the District
of Columbia should go a long way toward addressing these
concerns. I believe the establishment of a laboratory would
benefit our law enforcement efforts in the following ways:
First, it would give us more control of the prioritization of
our cases. Without the competing demands of cases from other
jurisdictions, we'd be better able to schedule and prioritize
our forensics analyses to meet the needs of our investigations
and our trial schedules.
Second, it would give us an opportunity to tackle the
backlog of DNA samples collected in D.C. and then give us the
opportunity to enter them into appropriate data bases to be
used in D.C. and throughout the Nation.
It would also permit closer coordination among
investigators, the prosecutors and the forensic analysts that
would help us solve crimes and bring more criminals to justice.
It would expand our ability to use DNA analysis and other
forensic testing in the investigative prearrest stages of our
cases.
It would be an opportunity to upgrade our forensics
facilities and equipment which are lacking in some respects.
It would allow us to enhance the management and operations
of the medical examiner's office whose work is vitally critical
to the successful prosecution of our homicide cases. It would
allow us the ability to do our own drug analysis on suspected
drugs. And finally, the development of a state-of-the-art
facility would help to attract and retain high caliber staff
and managers to run a high quality forensics program here in
D.C.
Now one doesn't need to watch CSI every week to appreciate
the critical role of forensics work in our criminal
investigations and our prosecutions. As technology progresses
and as jurors increasingly expect to see sophisticated
forensics evidence at trial, we are becoming more and more
reliant on effective evidence collection and analysis to
develop cases and to secure convictions in our violent crime
prosecutions.
There is no better example of this phenomenon than our
neighboring jurisdiction to the west. The Commonwealth of
Virginia has shown how enormously valuable DNA data bases can
be in the effort to solve crimes. Since the creation of this
data bank in 1992, Virginia has entered over 250,000 samples
taken from convicted felons. The data base has produced 3,451
hits which have solved 338 murders, 610 sex crimes, and 2,163
burglaries. That is over 3,000 very serious crimes, most of
which would not have been solved without that DNA technology
and data bases.
The District of Columbia needs to catch up. It needs to be
able to analyze cases in which there is no identified suspect.
This means that both crime scene samples and offender samples
have to be entered into the system to try to make a match. As
helpful as the FBI lab has been and it's been tremendously
helpful in making sure we have analyses for trial when there's
an identified suspect, it simply can't process all of the
District's no suspect samples and all the offenders for the
data base and still do all of its other very important work.
While a D.C. forensic laboratory will not solve all of our
law enforcement challenges, it will go a long way toward making
sure that those crimes that can be solved, are solved. For the
victims of these crimes, their families and the community as a
whole, this should be a high priority.
Thank you for inviting me to testify today, and I would be
pleased to answer any questions you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wainstein follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0327.012
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. DiZinno. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. DiZINNO
Mr. DiZinno. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman
Norton and members of the committee, I am pleased to be here
today to discuss the FBI's continued commitment to assist the
Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department in the
development of their own forensic laboratory assets.
During 2002 and 2003, the FBI Laboratory initiated
discussions with the MPD to explore the development of an MOU
between both agencies regarding issues affecting MPD forensic
case examinations. The FBI Laboratory has historically provided
laboratory testing services to MPD. Since September 11, 2001,
the mission of the FBI Laboratory has focused primarily on
providing forensic services to support counterterrorism and
counterintelligence investigations. The support to MPD
investigations could continue but not at the priority level
previously received.
Since approximately 30 percent of all submissions received
by the FBI Laboratory nuclear DNA analysis unit and a
significant number of trace evidence examinations involve MPD
investigations, the FBI Laboratory recommended the formation of
an MPD laboratory that would replace the trace evidence and DNA
services being performed by the FBI Laboratory. The FBI
Laboratory and MPD then developed an MOU to document this
partnership.
As part of the MOU, the FBI has provided MPD laboratory
space, equipment and supplies and training for MPD personnel to
perform examinations within the FBI Laboratory. Additionally,
laboratory operational manuals, quality assurance procedures
and all materials necessary to pursue laboratory accreditation
within the scope of the FBI Laboratory's accreditation agency,
the American Association of Crime Laboratory Directors,
Laboratory Accreditation Board, or ASCLD/LAB, have been
provided.
In the spring of 2004, the MOU was formally agreed upon by
both agencies and the FBI Laboratory immediately began
supporting this initiative. Based upon the 2002 workload
submitted to the FBI Laboratory by the MPD, it was recommended
that three serology/DNA examination teams, each consisting of
one examiner and one biologist, be established as well as two
trace evidence examination teams, each consisting of one
examiner and one technician. Narrative position descriptions,
academic and experience requirements, salary ranges and
employment postings were provided by the FBI Laboratory to MPD
in April 2004. Subsequent to the signing of the MOU, the FBI
Laboratory assisted in the advertisement, recruitment and
interview process to select prospective candidates from June to
October 2004.
Currently two MPD trace evidence examiners and one MPD
trace evidence technician are working on MPD casework in FBI
Laboratory. A second trace evidence technician resigned before
completing her training and a replacement was hired and is
expected to be qualified by the end of September 2006. The
incorporation of the MPD trace evidence teams in the FBI
Laboratory has had significant positive results for the MPD and
the FBI. For example, between 2003 and 2005, average turnaround
time for MPD trace evidence cases was reduced from 142 to 50
days with the incorporation of the MPD trace evidence teams.
Incidentally in that same time period, the non-MPD trace
evidence examination turnaround time for the FBI Laboratory
decreased from 127 days in 2003 to 61 days in 2005. For DNA
analysis currently two MPD DNA biologists are performing pre-
DNA serology examinations on MPD casework in the FBI Laboratory
and are expected to be qualified to perform DNA biologist work
in spring 2007. The third MPD biologist is currently training
in the FBI Laboratory. In addition, two MPD DNA examiners have
been hired and both should be qualified to perform DNA
examinations on MPD casework by the fall of 2007. The FBI will
continue to assist MPD to recruit a third DNA examiner.
It should be noted that since the inception of this
program, an additional five DNA personnel have been hired and
have left the program for a variety of reasons. Overall, it is
anticipated that two DNA examiners and three qualified DNA
biologists will be working MPD casework by October 2007.
In 2003, the FBI Laboratory received 194 MPD DNA cases and
159 MPD submissions were reported with DNA results. In 2005,
the FBI Laboratory received 255 MPD DNA cases and reported 232
MPD DNA submissions--results. It should be noted that a portion
of the MPD DNA cases were outsourced for DNA analysis work at a
cost of $1.1 million paid by the FBI Laboratory. The current
backlog for nuclear DNA casework in the FBI Laboratory consists
of 329 MPD cases and 1,323 non-MPD cases. The average
turnaround time for a nuclear DNA case in the FBI Laboratory
has increased to almost 1 year for nonexpedited cases. It is
anticipated that once the MPD DNA personnel are qualified and
working MPD cases, the turnaround time for MPD DNA cases as
well as the FBI non-MPD DNA cases will significantly be
reduced.
As far as the national DNA data base, FBI lab personnel
have uploaded 2,325 DNA samples from Court Services and
Offender Supervision Agency [CSOSA], and 23,756 Federal
convicted offender samples, some of those samples of convicted
offenders from Washington, DC as well as 250 to 300 forensic or
unknown samples into the national data base. As a result of FBI
personnel uploading Washington, DC DNA data into the national
DNA index, 14 CSOSA offender hits have occurred as well as 70
national DNA index hits to forensic samples of MPD profiles.
Overall, it is anticipated in the first quarter of 2008 the
MPD laboratory could potentially achieve ASCLD/LAB
accreditation.
Once again, I appreciate the opportunity to come before you
today and share the work that the FBI Laboratory is doing in
cooperation with MPD to address the need to support the
development of a dedicated MPD laboratory. The FBI will
continue its efforts and will keep this committee informed of
our progress in protecting the people of this Nation's Capital.
Mr. Chairman, Ms. Norton, members of the committee, thank
you for your time and your continued support of the FBI and MPD
laboratory's continued efforts to address the timely analysis
of forensic evidence in the Nation's Capital. I am happy to
answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. DiZinno follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Chief Ramsey, thanks for being with us.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES H. RAMSEY
Chief Ramsey. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman and members of
the committee, staff and guests, thank you for the opportunity
to testify this morning concerning the District of Columbia
consolidated laboratory facility and what the lab will do for
crime fighting and crime prevention in our Nation's Capital.
Deputy Mayor Reiskin will provide you with a detailed
update on the planning and implementation of the proposed lab
and he will articulate quite clearly and convincingly why such
a facility dedicated to the needs and priorities of the
Metropolitan Police Department and other D.C. Government
agencies is so crucial to the health and safety of our city. I
won't try to repeat what the deputy mayor will lay out for the
committee. However, I would like to amplify a few key points
that he will make, especially as they relate to the
Metropolitan Police Department's mission of crime solving and
crime prevention.
Over the years advancements in DNA analysis and other
forensics technology has provided law enforcement with
tremendous benefits in the short term as well as amazing
promise and potential for the future. While television has
certainly popularized the importance of DNA in modern crime
fighting, law enforcement agencies across the country can point
to any number of real-life cases that have been solved through
the use of DNA analysis. Earlier this year here in the District
of Columbia we closed a 23-year-old murder case based largely
on DNA evidence.
The entertainment programs such as CSI and Law and Order
gloss over one very important reality, to take full advantage
of DNA technology agencies need the resources, bricks and
mortar, specialized equipment and highly trained staff to do
the job. Unfortunately, the District of Columbia has been
behind the curve, far behind the curve for a long period of
time when it comes to harnessing the power of DNA technology.
During the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's when other
jurisdictions were investing in building or expanding the
capacity of their crime labs, the District continued to rely on
the Federal Government to handle most of our lab operations. In
recent years, it has become clear to everyone, the Mayor, the
D.C. Council, Metropolitan Police, other health and safety
agencies and certainly our residents that this situation is no
longer tenable. To support our crime fighting efforts, the
District needs its own dedicated crime laboratory and we need a
laboratory that's capable of taking full advantage of the
latest in DNA and other forensics technologies.
As you will hear from the deputy mayor, we're finally
moving in that direction with plans underway to construct a
consolidated laboratory that will include a fully functional
crime lab to support the MPD and other agencies.
The Metropolitan Police Department appreciates the crime
lab's support and resources provided by the FBI and other
Federal agencies over the years. The FBI in particular has been
a gracious and steady partner in analyzing evidence for our
department and, more recently, in providing space and resources
for a small number of dedicated MPD technicians to work on
District cases at the FBI lab, but I understand that the FBI
has its own needs and its own priorities when it comes to
allocating the finite resources of its crime lab and since the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the demands on the FBI
crime lab have certainly expanded and their priorities have
necessarily shifted.
I know it can be difficult and frustrating for a crime
victim in D.C. or the survivor of a homicide victim to be told
that forensic analysis on their case may be delayed because the
FBI crime lab is focusing on other priorities that come first.
But that's the reality we face under the current situation.
A dedicated D.C. crime lab is essential for both day-to-day
crime fighting as well as homeland security in the National
Capital Region. The reality is should there be a future
terrorist strike in the District of Columbia we would need not
only the FBI crime lab but other forensic facilities to be
involved in the myriad tasks associated with such a
catastrophic event. In this scenario a dedicated D.C. crime lab
would promote much needed coordination among police, health
officials in the medical examiner's office, while continuing to
ensure evidence from local crimes--sexual assaults, robberies,
and others--is still being analyzed in a timely fashion.
In your invitation letter, Mr. Chairman, you asked about
the relationship between forensic testing and the MPD's ability
to refer cases for prosecution. That is a somewhat difficult
question to assess. There are very few cases in which DNA or
other forensic evidence is the sole basis for prosecution.
Typically forensics represents one element of the total
evidentiary package in any particular case. That said, there
are certainly cases where DNA, for example, is the foundation
for a case and moving forward depends on the forensic evidence.
Our inability to analyze this evidence in a timely manner can
delay our ability to move forward on some cases.
Perhaps a larger technical limitation involves our
inability under the current arrangement to take full advantage
of the CODIS system, the repository of DNA samples that has
been so beneficial in identifying offenders and solving cases
nationally. Currently in many of our cases the FBI crime lab is
able to conduct DNA analysis only when we have a suspect in a
case. As such, the DNA test is largely to confirm the
involvement of an already identified suspect. That is certainly
beneficial in fact essential in these types of cases. However,
if our department had its own fully functional crime lab, we
would be able to conduct many more cold hit analyses in which
DNA recovery at the crime scene is tested against the national
repository. If the experiences of Virginia and other
jurisdictions are any guide, I am quite confident this would
result in more offenders being arrested and more cases being
solved. In addition to being a benefactor of CODIS, the
District of Columbia could also become a more frequent
contributor to the national system, something that would
benefit others, particularly neighboring jurisdictions as well.
Unnecessary delays or missed opportunities in moving
forward with criminal prosecutions can harm not only the
victims or the survivors, who are seeking justice and some
measure of closure. They can also endanger the community at
large as offenders continue to commit crimes while the earlier
case against them is being built. That's why I so strongly
believe that we need to have our own dedicated crime lab, and
it has implications not only for investigating and solving
crimes but just as importantly for preventing crime if we're
making our community safer.
In many respects, our department is performing remarkably
well, given the limitations we face with our crime lab
resources. According to the FBI's 2005 crime statistics that
were released earlier this week, the District's clearance rates
for homicide, rape, aggravated assault and burglary are well
above average when compared with comparably sized cities having
populations of 500,000 to 1 million, and while I'm certainly
pleased that our clearance rates were higher than the norm, I
will never be satisfied with just being above average. This is
our Nation's Capital, and we should be setting the standard
when it comes to criminal investigations, crime solving and
crime prevention. We can't possibly meet that goal if we don't
have our own dedicated crime lab facility.
The good news is that our city is united in our commitment
to build a state-of-the-art crime lab facility. Our elected
leaders, the business community, the police department and
other safety and health agencies and, most importantly, our
residents all recognize the need for this facility and the
benefits it would bring. So moving forward with this project is
not a matter of consensus or commitment but a matter of
resources. By working together, the District Government and our
partners in the Federal Government, I am confident that we can
find the resources necessary to create a facility that is
fitting and appropriate for our Nation's Capital and one that
will help us continue to make this great city even safer and
more secure.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Chief Ramsey follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Reiskin, thanks for being with us.
STATEMENT OF EDWARD D. REISKIN
Mr. Reiskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. My name
is Ed Reiskin. I am the deputy mayor for public safety and
justice. And I do want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and you,
Congresswoman Norton, for your continued leadership on many
issues that are of vital interest to the District and this is
most certainly one of them.
I am happy to be here on behalf of Mayor Williams to
discuss this topic that's of vital importance not just to
District of Columbia residents but also to our Federal
stakeholders and the other folks that are involved in the
District's complex criminal justice system.
The reason Mayor Williams and the Council has championed
this issue, both through his request for Federal support and
through his commitment of significant local capital resources,
is that this facility will have a greater impact on reducing
crime and preparing the city for disasters than perhaps any
other single investment we can make.
There's been a lot of discussion about the crime lab
aspects of this facility, but this is a consolidated laboratory
facility that we're building. It will house the Metropolitan
Police Department's forensics crime laboratory, the entire
operations of our chief medical examiner, the Department of
Health's public health laboratory, and the forensic toxicology
drug testing lab of the Pretrial Services Agency, which is a
Federal agency.
You've heard much about the benefits of the crime lab which
include not only enhanced capability to solve crimes but
improve expedited detection of and response to biological or
chemical agents and communicable diseases, state-of-the-art
facilities to support death investigations and greater
coordination, communication and standardization among the
agencies, and these synergies are not and cannot be achieved
through the current work of outmoded facilities, outsourced
responsibilities and outspaced capacity.
The distinguished panel here has spoke quite a bit to the
criminal aspects of this. So I'll just highlight that we have
tens of thousands of items of evidence collected at the scenes
of crimes every day throughout the District, but because of the
lack of facilities, many of those pieces of evidence go
unanalyzed. They're certainly unanalyzed quickly, sometimes
languishing for years, leaving criminals on the loose, victims'
families suffering and of course justice not served.
The Chief has spoken to the fact and all of them have
spoken to the fact that we have lagged behind in terms of DNA
analysis and processing and, as you refer to, Mr. Chairman, one
of the more striking statistics is that we have roughly 1,500
sexual assault cases awaiting analysis. The sexual assault case
backlog is shameful and an injustice to the many victims who
would find peace only through the capture of their assailants.
Beyond DNA analysis, the lab will support firearms,
fingerprint, document and cyber analysis, all critical to the
successful closure and prosecution of crime in the District.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, also a part of this
lab, has the responsibility for identifying decedents but no
viable means of using DNA analysis which would be particularly
helpful on unidentifiable or decomposed decedents.
This facility is small and old which can strain staff size
and effectiveness, and the fact that they have to outsource
functions can delay certification of the cause and manner of
death, which cannot only hamper a criminal investigation, as
the U.S. Attorney referred to, but also leaves families waiting
longer than they should to have closure.
The lab will also contain a public health lab, and I don't
have to tell you that we remain one of the top targets in the
country for terrorism, and in fact we were struck with a
bioterrorism attack here in this complex shortly after
September 11th. The District's Department of Health partnered
with many others in the response, and while 5 years later our
response capabilities have improved quite a bit, there's been
relatively little improvement in our ability to detect and
prevent.
The new public health laboratory as part of the
consolidated lab would be able to provide laboratory response,
network approved rapid identification of bioterrorism agents,
and clinical diagnostic support for hospitals with potential
victims of biological, chemical or toxin exposures. In order to
safely handle these types of agents, we need a biosafety level
3 containment facility.
Our current public health lab, which is 64 years old and
collocated in an office environment, actually in the police
department headquarters building, that cannot be upgraded to
that level.
With the proper containment facilities, we'll be allowed to
safely process various agents of bioterrorism such as anthrax,
tularemia and ricin. These types of facilities are also
required by conventional forensic disciplines to conduct
forensic examinations on biologically contaminated evidence
that are part of criminal investigations.
So to bring you up to where we are with this facility, to
date over $23 million has been committed through District and
Federal funding. We have an expert team in place on this
project. We've completed a program analysis which has
identified a need for a roughly 300 square foot, 5 story
facility that would house roughly 500 employees. Site analysis
is complete. Having reviewed location, accessibility ownership,
zoning and other factors, we are currently completing a process
mapping exercise, which will help define our staffing analysis
as well as help us be able to exploit synergies between the
different functions. And just last month we executed a design
contract so the design for the facility is now underway with
the program site and process mapping work in hand.
Finally, we have $150 million proposed in local capital
budget funding over the next--over the two following fiscal
years for construction, the balance of construction dollars to
be requested from the Federal Government.
So in closing we're very grateful for the opportunity to
raise this issue. As I said, the Mayor and the Council have
committed significant effort and resources to this project.
There are many benefits which I think the other speakers have
already touched upon, benefits that will serve not only our
residents and businesses but the members of our Federal family
in the city and the 20 or 25 million visitors who come here
each year.
So I thank you for this opportunity and look forward to
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Reiskin follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Well, thank you very much as well. Ms.
Mohammed, thank you for being with us.
STATEMENT OF VALENCIA MOHAMMED
Ms. Mohammed. Thank you very much. Now it's time to hear
from the mamas. Thank you very much, Congressman Davis and
Congressman Norton, for having me here today.
In the spirit of the tens of thousands of families who have
lost a loved one to street wars in the black community plagued
with drugs and gun violence, I come before you today in peace
in support of the thousands of mothers like myself who have
endured the pain of losing our children to violence in the
streets of the District of Columbia while others look down on
us as if street violence only comes to bad people or those
people who deserved it.
I am Valencia Mohammed, the mother of six children. I have
lost two sons to gun violence in the Nation's Capital. In 1999,
my 14-year-old son Said Raqib was found murdered in my own home
while I attended a weekend sorority conference in Philadelphia.
I aged 10 years in a week from crying and begging God to bring
him back alive. I have never spoken with the original detective
in that case. I was in shock and could not work for the first 2
years following his death. The murder tore my family apart. One
child became mentally ill, going in and out of mental
institutions.
Another child, Imtiaz Mohammed, who I believed had a bright
future, dropped out of high school with only seven credits left
to complete his secondary education. Imtiaz seemed to be on the
path of destruction after the death of his brother.
On the D.C. streets, if you know who killed someone, you
don't tell, you take revenge, you wait until the police solve a
case, you take the information to your grave. In fact, you
don't even tell your mother, your snitching mother. I waited
and waited for years to hear some good news about my son's
case. The stream rumor was that he was accidentally killed by
one of his friends while they were examining a gun they rented
with their allowance. I kept this in my heart. My family told
the police we never heard from them again. I always thought I
was due some official investigation and detailed explanation
about what happened.
On October 28, 2004, I received another call, the news
about my son Imtiaz Mohammed being shot brutally in front of a
home where we first lived in the District. The house is only
four blocks from the police precinct. The murder happened
around 4 p.m. while I was on my way to computer class. I was
hysterical when I heard it because, like Said, I knew there was
nothing I could do to bring him back. At this time I got two
responsible police detectives. However, they were so efficient
in their duties, they also had a very heavy caseload. As a
reporter, many times I would see them in Federal court. How
could they be working on my son's case when they were in court,
I said to myself.
I was already determined to become an activist for grieving
mothers and an advocate for our loved ones who were killed in
the District after Imtiaz was killed. I told the Chief, I would
galvanize mothers to help the police department get whatever
they needed to make our community safe. I don't know how many
others accepted the charge to pound the streets, grocery
stores, churches, schools, Metro stations, radio shows,
television stations, corridors of the D.C. politicians or the
halls and corridors of the Senate, but I knew what was my
calling at that point. The Chief said, if you could just help
me get a forensics lab. I said, is that all you need? He said,
please, just help me get that. I accepted the challenge.
Solemnly, I swore with the blood of my two sons that I
would not stop until this matter received the attention on
Capitol Hill that it deserved, along with the appropriate funds
to erect a fully operational, adequately staffed forensics
crime lab. I took to the streets with the newsletter showing a
few photos of murder victims. Hundreds of parents began to call
me. We began to organize our efforts on several fronts to stop
crime because we began to analyze many of the programs that
were in place, that were serving a small segment of our
community. We analyzed organizations that received lots of
attention but did not produce adequate results.
Thank God, we ran into Paul Wagner, who's a reporter from
WTTG Fox TV, who had been a lone soldier out in the community
for over 7 years, crying for a forensics lab, but his cries
went on deaf ears. We also contacted about a dozen
jurisdictions with crime labs, obtained blueprints and
information about funding sources.
As we near the possibility of the District's own forensics
lab, the cost is our concern. We have been told that the only
way Congress would fund the forensics lab is for it to include
a bioterrorist lab component. That's not fair. For decades we
have relied on the FBI to assist us. We almost had 5,000
unsolved murders on the books. Does anyone hear our plea? It's
really not fair. We want our own stand-alone forensics crime
lab. Take the bioterrorist component where it belongs, with the
military or the FBI. Bioterrorism is a national issue. We need
and deserve our own state-of-the-art, fully operational,
adequately staffed and fully operational forensics lab.
Congressman Davis, many of the mothers whose children were
killed in the District come from Fairfax County. They believe
their children's murders are not solved because they reside in
your county. Some of their children came to D.C. for a date,
others going home from work. I want to go back and tell them
also, Congressman Davis, that you are fighting on their behalf.
I want to give all mothers who have lost their children to the
streets in D.C. some hope that they can finally rely on their
officials and that you are listening.
Once the Congress decides to provide funding for the lab,
we do not want it redirected in any way by the Mayor or the
Council of the District of Columbia.
Please hear our plea. We have planned in the near future
for dozens of mothers to begin our lobbying efforts after the
first of the year. We will walk the halls of Congress and the
Senate. The discussions in this meeting will determine our
direction. For mothers who have lost their direction due to
street violence, the pain is quite different from mothers who
have lost their children to foreign wars. We mean no harm. At
least a mother of a war casualty may give her child a kiss
goodbye or a hug before they shipped them off to fight for
freedom in a foreign country. There might be a big celebration.
Then there's a big send-off with hundreds of fellow enlistees
to serve this country. These parents are fully aware that they
have sent their children to kill or be killed in a war
sanctioned by this country. If their child kills dozens of
people in the war, the act is hailed as a victory. If they got
killed in the act, they are hailed as heroes. With street
violence, mothers don't know that the last spoken word to their
child, hug or kiss with their children would be the last. There
is no big send-off party. After they have been killed, no one
hails them as a hero but a victim.
Sometimes society and police have preconceived concepts
that the child may have caused his or her own demise. Many
mothers don't fight for their right for closure. They endure
the pain and slowly die inside spiritually and until the pain
takes them over physically and they pass away. But for those of
us who have sworn with the blood of our children, we will
continue to fight for our police department to get whatever it
needs to keep our community safe.
We will leave you in peace until we meet again. Thank you
again, Congressman Davis and Congressman Eleanor Holmes Norton,
and we truly believe that this matter could have been resolved
a long time ago if our Congressperson had a voice in Congress.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mohammed follows:]
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Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. I'm trying to get her a
voice in Congress.
Ms. Mohammed. Thank you. I know.
Chairman Tom Davis. And I'm working on it. Thank you very
much for being here and sharing that tragic story, and
hopefully it won't be repeated if we can get some action. Your
testimony has been very, very helpful.
I'm going to start the questioning with Ms. Norton and then
I'll conclude it. Ms. Norton, you're recognized.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis. Ms. Mohammed, I
have a voice. The problem is I don't have a vote, but I know
exactly what you mean. And Chairman Davis is doing all--he and
his staff are doing all they can to help. And we're trying to
get this done this term. It's been a long time.
Your testimony, the testimony of all of you has been very
enlightening to me. Let me begin with a few questions. This
question comes from the testimony of Mr. DiZinno. I'm a member
of the Homeland Security Committee, so is the chairman. And I
noted that your testimony virtually began with what we all
know, and you say on page one indeed that the FBI Laboratory
has focused primarily on providing forensic services for
counterterrorism and counterintelligence. What does that mean
in terms of your support for ordinary criminal investigations
that you assist in the District of Columbia and, for that
matter, in the other States, and how does--and I would like
some sense of before and after on that question, before
terrorism and after terrorism.
Mr. DiZinno. Yes. Thank you. I think to answer your
question the way the FBI addresses its caseload in the
laboratory is based on the FBI priorities. Since September 11th
those priorities----
Ms. Norton. So forensically that would mean what? Does that
mean that you fill in the blanks?
Mr. DiZinno. That would mean that if there was evidence
submitted that has to do with preventing a terrorist attack or
evidence submitted that would have to do with preventing the
United States against foreign intelligence operations or
espionage in line with the FBI priorities, those cases would be
worked prior to cases of violent crime.
Ms. Norton. It's hard for me to know. Therefore, how often
or how--what this means in terms of numbers or delays for local
jurisdictions like the District of Columbia.
Mr. DiZinno. Yes.
Ms. Norton. The District now pays for much of its own staff
and maybe we can understand that the District is paying for
this service in the FBI, is it not?
Mr. DiZinno. The District is currently funding the
personnel in our lab--to work in our laboratory. All the
reagent supplies, quality assurance, quality control measures,
training, that is provided by the FBI laboratory.
As far as the priority for the District of Columbia cases,
we ask the MPD to prioritize their cases that they submit to us
prior to them being submitted.
Ms. Norton. Do you have so many cases that it means that--
when you say ``cases'' that may prevent a terrorist attack, we
hope that you're not--we hope that there are not thousands and
thousands of cases that have to do with preventing a terrorist
attack. So I'm trying get some sense of how much work you do
for local jurisdictions today as compared with, let us say,
before September 11th, just in rough percentage terms.
Mr. DiZinno. Well, certainly the percent varies in the
laboratory depending on what examination we are speaking about,
whether it be DNA, latent print exams, and those percentages
vary from unit to unit depending on the area of expertise of
examination desired in that case. Certainly, since September
11th, the number of terrorism cases submitted to our laboratory
has greatly increased. If you would like, I can get back to you
with numbers for each----
Ms. Norton. That would be very helpful.
Mr. DiZinno [continuing]. Specific area if that would be
helpful.
Ms. Norton. That would be very helpful and not only for our
work on this committee, but in my other work on other
committees having to do with antiterrorism efforts.
This MOU idea is a very good idea. I'm trying to understand
it and the greater efficiency that it has brought.
Could I ask Mr. Reiskin, you say in your testimony that
backlogged cases are not part of the MOU, which leads me to
wonder if they're orphans or what happens to them.
Mr. Reiskin. As Dr. DiZinno said, MPD has the ability to
prioritize the cases that go to the FBI lab. The FBI lab has a
constrained capacity, understandably, because of the priorities
that they have as the Federal law enforcement agency to be able
to handle D.C. cases, and largely, I think they've been very
accommodating in working with us, working with MPD, to
prioritize what cases are submitted for analysis and which are
not. It's the----
Ms. Norton. No. I'm asking you another question. I
understand that. Backlogged cases are not part of the MOU.
Where are they? Who handles them? The more backlogged a case
gets, the less likely it is to do any good even if you do get
to it. So I'm trying to figure out, if they're not a part of
the MOU, which means that you have to do at least with some of
the processing, then what happens to that group of cases, and
how many such cases are there?
Mr. Reiskin. We have attempted to work down that backlog.
We've received some grant funds from the Department of Justice.
Ms. Norton. So you all do those cases yourselves?
Mr. Reiskin. What we've done most recently is we've
contracted with a private laboratory. We have a contract that
will enable something on the order of 250 cases to be
processed, but the private laboratory is not accredited by the
FBI, so it can't do the CODIS data base entry, so we're----
Ms. Norton. Well, does that mean the particular one you're
using, or no private laboratories are accredited by the FBI?
Mr. Reiskin. I don't believe any type of laboratories are
accredited.
Mr. DiZinno. The FBI is not an accrediting agency. Most
labs are accredited by an organization called the American
Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, Laboratory Accreditation
Board [ASCLD/LAB].
Ms. Norton. Now, is this lab accredited or not?
Mr. Reiskin. The private lab we've contracted with is not.
What we have done is we've reached out to the accredited crime
labs in the region, and we are in the process of working with
one of them on an MOU that would enable them to take the
results of the analysis that we have had done and get it
entered into the data base. But we clearly have more backlog
than we can handle.
Ms. Norton. I've got to stop you there because, you know,
I'm not a defense lawyer, but you've already given me something
to go back at the U.S. attorney when the matter comes. Whether
it matters or not to be accredited, the fact that the jury
hears that it's not accredited is not something that I would
want to have happen if I were a victim of a crime.
So would you please tell me what the effect of giving it to
an unaccredited lab is?
Chief Ramsey. If I may, Ms. Norton, the lab that we're
contracted with, the private lab, it is accredited. The problem
is that because it's--they can't enter into CODIS. They're not
a law enforcement agency.
Ms. Norton. I see.
Chief Ramsey. So another agency has to then review the
results, like the FBI, like Baltimore City, for an example,
that can enter directly into CODIS. So you really don't--I mean
that--it's still got a backlog because they not only have to
deal with their cases; I mean, quite frankly, they probably may
as well have done the analysis themselves if they've got to go
over someone else's work, in a sense. It's a little easier, but
it still takes more time. So it just makes it difficult. So we
are working with Baltimore City now to try to get some of our
cases handled through their lab, as well as continuing to try
to get some of the cases through the private labs, but that's
266 cases. I mean, we have almost 1,500 sex cases that are
backlogged, so you're barely putting a dent into the backlog.
Ms. Norton. That's 266----
Chief Ramsey. Like we've got money for it right now to be
able to try to get to the backlog at that pace, and then if you
add on that the new cases that you're constantly getting, you
aren't really putting any kind of meaningful dent into the
backlog. So until we have our own lab and we're able to
establish priorities, we're able to be more proactive and not
just deal with those cases where there's a suspect known or in
custody, then----
Ms. Norton. What is the suspect number in custody? Is
that----
Chief Ramsey. Well, right now--because you've got a limited
amount of resources, so you're going to do those first----
Ms. Norton. Yeah, I see.
Chief Ramsey [continuing]. But you have to get at those
unknowns----
Ms. Norton. Oh, God.
Chief Ramsey [continuing]. So you can identify those
people. Many of those suspects are already in a data base, but
unless you actually work the DNA, you won't know it, so they're
free to commit additional crimes or they're picked up by
another jurisdiction, and they're in custody for a crime, but
you can't tie them to the D.C. crime because that evidence has
not been worked. So they're already out of circulation when
they could have been charged additionally here, in some cases,
had we known or had that information been in a data base.
Ms. Norton. Does this explain why there's so many sex, sex
assault cases in----
Chief Ramsey. Well----
Ms. Norton. I mean, why are there so many of the backlogged
cases that are sex assault cases?
Chief Ramsey. Many of the sex assault cases that we have in
the District are known offenders. There's some relationship
between victim and offender--date rape, some kind of casual
acquaintance or whatever. We do have stranger rapes that take
place as well.
Ms. Norton. Well, just a moment. If it's an acquaintance,
you still--is there still the same kind of need for----
Chief Ramsey. No, not often.
Ms. Norton. OK.
Chief Ramsey. Sometimes there's not.
Ms. Norton. But the sexual assault cases that are in the
backlog are cases where the assailant is not known?
Chief Ramsey. Some are. Some are not. We do send them, but
they're a lower priority because there's an unknown--there's no
name to it. So with many of our cases, there is evidence there,
but because you don't know who a suspect is, you don't have a
named offender, it's a low priority----
Ms. Norton. And this is one of the most----
Chief Ramsey [continuing]. But we do send it.
Ms. Norton. Yeah. The word is out. You're not in court for
rape--and now I understand the problem--because it may be,
perhaps, the best example of what forensic could do--forensics
could do, given the pileup of sexes--sexual assault cases.
Mr. Wainstein, congratulations on your new appointment. We
can still call upon you when you're off dealing with terrorism?
Mr. Wainstein. Please do.
Ms. Norton. Let me ask you about a concern of mine.
Some years ago, I was able to get very few criminal
investigators for your office when I learned--it was some years
ago. I was--maybe I had been in Congress half as long as I am
now when I learned that your office didn't have criminal
investigators.
What particularly concerned me was to know that they did
have some, and they found that they simply used MPD officers
because they've got to use somebody to investigate cases, and
these officers, of course, have to be in court anyway when
their case may be called; and in addition, apparently, they
also are investigating cases that, in comparable jurisdictions,
are being investigated by dedicated criminal investigators.
What is the ratio of investigators to attorneys, and, let
us say, typical jurisdictions with criminal--with a criminal
jurisdiction like you have, and what is the ratio in the
District of Columbia of criminal investigators to attorneys?
Mr. Wainstein. Well, first, if I may, Congresswoman Norton,
thank you for the congratulations, and let me reiterate, please
do call on me for anything. I look forward to continuing
working with the District of Columbia in any way I can, and I--
second, let me thank you, Congresswoman Norton, for your
efforts in this area over the years. This has been a big issue
for D.C., for the U.S. Attorney's Office here for many years
because we are--as I said earlier, we are the D.A.'s Office in
many respects.
Ms. Norton. Indeed. Let me ask you: What percentage of your
cases are typical criminal jurisdiction cases, and what
percentage of your cases are typical Federal jurisdiction
cases?
Mr. Wainstein. Well, I don't know the exact percentage, but
we have about 22,000 cases that we bring in D.C. Superior
Court, which are the cases----
Ms. Norton. How many cases do you bring in Federal court?
Mr. Wainstein. I don't know the exact number but somewhere,
maybe, up to 1,000 or so. So it's derived by the the number of
cases within----
Ms. Norton. This is why the District of Columbia feels it
has to have it. It has nothing to do with you, Mr. Wainstein,
but imagine that you have another home rule anomaly that the
U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has no caseload to
speak of, except our own local caseload, and we're very
grateful for his work, but the Federal cases here are a
pittance compared to the lion's share of his caseload, which
are typical robbery, murder and other State offenses. Go ahead,
sir.
Mr. Wainstein. Yes. Well--but our Federal side is quite
active. We have, I think, somewhere in--80 to 90 assistant U.S.
attorneys working on the Federal side and about 160-170 working
on superior court. So in terms of the allocation, the manpower,
and the amount of work we do on either side, it is significant
in both areas.
Also, there's quite a bit of crossover. As you know, we do
a lot of Federal cases which take on violent crime in the
streets of D.C. in our Federal prosecutions. But as to the
investigators, you were very helpful, and we spearheaded the
effort to get us investigators initially. We had a couple of
investigators along the way who helped here and there, but we
didn't have a cadre of investigators we could call on on the
superior court side of our operation to go out and help----
Ms. Norton. How many investigators do you have on the
superior court side?
Mr. Wainstein. We have about 10 now, and that's thanks to
your efforts. And the problem that you've identified is that if
you look at most D.A.'s offices, they have a huge number of
investigators that the prosecutors rely on to help build the
cases in the grand jury stage post-arrest, pretrial, so they
don't have to rely exclusively on the local police department
or the Federal agencies for that matter. We don't, so we really
rely on the Metropolitan Police Department. It does very high-
caliber investigative work.
Ms. Norton. Yeah. Our detectives and our police, but of
course, they have to be taken from work that would otherwise
go--would be typical police work. But I'm not criticizing you;
I just think Congress has not been very much aware of this.
I do want to say for the record that, when my good friend
from Virginia, Mr. Wolf, indicated a concern about crime here,
I brought this matter to his attention. He has been concerned
about crime, and has been--we were talking, chairman, and he
and I have been talking on and on about crime even before the
crime emergency. He happens to be the chair of the subcommittee
with jurisdiction over U.S. attorneys in the United States, and
I have asked him to try to include in your appropriation at a
conference more investigators.
Imagine what this would mean at a time when the--when D.C.
has appropriated, yet again, more money. Keep throwing money
and somehow crime will go down. How long? Do you have to be
born in the District of Columbia to know that's never worked?
Keep throwing more money at the police department, and that
will take care of it.
The problem with that is the chief, justifying before the
council, is that these police have to be trained--how long does
it take, Mr. Ramsey, to train?
Chief Ramsey. Six months in the academy, another year on
the street.
Ms. Norton. So--but what it would mean if we could get the
Federal Government to do for our U.S. Attorney's Office, what
it does for every U.S. attorney in the country, would be
immediately freeing up police to go back to spend more hours on
the District of Columbia. So I am interested in this. I'm
particularly interested in this issue, and I'm grateful that my
good friend from Virginia is also interested, and I do believe
he's going to help us.
Mr. Wainstein. Yes. Congresswoman Norton, I appreciate your
efforts and Chairman Wolf's efforts in that regard. Of course,
the sticking point always ends up coming down to dollars, and
the concern that I have, while I would love to have a large
number of investigators who would help our AUSAs out
tremendously, the problem is, right now, the whole U.S.
attorney community is in a very difficult budget situation. We
have vacancies. I have 11-percent vacancies in my office
because we don't have the budget to fill those vacancies. Those
are prosecutors. We have 40 prosecutors down now because of the
budget situation. So the problem would be, while I'd love to
have investigators, if it was a zero sum situation where we'd
have to actually take money out of what is already a tight
budget to pay for those investigators, it would possibly----
Ms. Norton. Mr. Wainstein, I don't care where the money
comes from. You're taking--let me be clear.
You may need your U.S. attorneys and other parts of your
budget, but we just had a crime emergency in this city. It's
very hard for me to hear testimony that the present situation
should continue, where police are taken off the street to
investigate cases, and so I don't care where it comes from.
Although, I think that Frank Wolf will do all that he can to
leave you whole, but I don't appreciate testimony that says,
you know, we've got vacancies in our office, so we should
continue to take from MPD when they--when you just heard
testimony that it will be 18 months or so before they'll get
one cop on the street pursuant to a crime emergency that was
this summer. So I'm going to press--I have one more question on
these investigators.
Is it not true that typically an office with your kind of
jurisdiction has--large cities, for example--has about one
attorney--sorry--one investigator for every four attorneys? I--
and your office doesn't even come close to that----
Mr. Wainstein. No. That's absolutely right, Congresswoman
Norton.
Ms. Norton [continuing]. And it's also true that you fill
out--you fill out this need with MPD officers.
Mr. Wainstein. Absolutely. MPD officers, they do the bulk
part of our investigations, and----
Ms. Norton. That's not even a Hobson's choice for us. I
want you to know, Mr. Wainstein, that's not even a Hobson's
choice. That's the wrong choice, and we've got to stop that
choice from happening, and that is my job.
Mr. Chairman, then I'll come back.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you, Ms. Norton.
You know, as I said in my opening statement, I understand
that, if a woman is raped in the District and there is no
suspect, that the MPD will complete a rape kit but will not
perform DNA testing on the evidence collected from the kit.
Is that an accurate understanding, Chief?
Chief Ramsey. It will be sent for testing, but it's a very
low priority, so it essentially doesn't get tested. The ones
that really get tested are the ones that are ready for
prosecution, if there's a known offender or if there's someone
who's awaiting trial, and those are the ones that get the
priority. So, if there's a known suspect, the odds are great.
If it's not, even though it's submitted, the odds of it ever
getting tested, unless we start really making serious inroads
into this backlog, is pretty low.
So, basically, you're doing the work with the MPD, but
you're sending them out, and we just don't have the capacity to
rush that, and generally we can do it now for the backlog; but
it's when we try to take the cold cases, if you will, and start
running them to see whether or not we have a suspect that's in
the data base, and then we can identify them.
Chairman Tom Davis. Is that essentially correct, Mr.
DiZinno, given your resources?
Mr. DiZinno. Yes, that's correct. We rely on MPD to
prioritize their cases as far as their submissions to us, and
we address the priority from the order that they're sent in.
Chairman Tom Davis. I mean, if you were able to get--if you
had the capacity to do everything, you could probably increase
your data base. You could find out--I mean, who knows what you
could match? You could probably close a lot more cases,
couldn't you?
Mr. DiZinno. Certainly the uploading of that data into the
data base would facilitate the investigations.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Wainstein, we titled this hearing--
and Ms. Norton mentioned it in her opening--``CSI Washington,''
and for a reason. We used to hear about the Perry Mason effect
in the murder trials when the defense needed to have a specific
alternative suspect. Now we all see the crime scene shows on
TV, but do we have a CSI effect where the prosecution now must
have DNA or trace evidence analysis to prove the case?
Mr. Wainstein. Absolutely. It's amazing to see the impact,
I'd say, maybe the last 6 or 7 years as these shows of--
television shows have gained popularity, and people see things
acted out over half an hour or an hour, where the police solve
the crime. And then, abracadabra, there's this tremendous
forensic evidence--DNA, fingerprints, gunshot residue, whatever
it is--and it always is the key to solving the crime. They see
it on TV, and they expect to see it in the courtroom. And we
see this and hear this from jurors all the time.
Chairman Tom Davis. Even if you have a case in every other
way but you don't have the DNA, this makes it tough?
Mr. Wainstein. Absolutely. And of course, you know, a juror
is instructed that if he or she has a reasonable doubt, then
that person must acquit; and often they see the lack of DNA,
the lack of fingerprints. Even in a situation where you might
not, based on the facts of the case, expect to find a
fingerprint or expect to find DNA, they ask ``Why isn't there
any DNA? We see that on TV all the time.'' So there's
absolutely been an impact on our cases.
Chairman Tom Davis. Then if you don't have the--if you
don't have the DNA data base, how can you go about identifying
and tracking serial rapists and murderers?
Mr. Wainstein. Well, that's a huge problem, and of course,
that problem arises even more in the investigative stage where,
you know, you've got a lot of rapists who are serial rapists.
They don't just do one rape, they do many rapes; and they do
them throughout various jurisdictions, and unless we can get
our samples into those data bases and have them match to
samples from other jurisdictions through CODIS, we're losing
the opportunity to find out who these serial rapists are and to
get them off the streets and prevent further crime.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Reiskin and Chief, I gather, then,
if you had the new forensics lab, it would eliminate the need
for such a restrictive policy, and we'd be able to follow
through on these cases.
Chief Ramsey. Yes, sir. It would certainly go a long way
toward certainly eliminating the backlog and also giving us the
ability, especially when you start to see patterns emerge. One
of the things that Mr. Wainstein was talking about with serial
rapists, you may not know who they are, but you certainly can
recognize the pattern, and you want to be able to put that
together as quickly as you can to try to identify the person
responsible and--and those are the cases that need to really
get bumped up and could be worked a lot quicker than they are
now.
Chairman Tom Davis. Mr. Reiskin, I understand that the
city's been working with Federal officials to help secure
funding for the consolidated lab facility.
Can you elaborate a little bit on the city's effort to date
and what additional congressional appropriations you think
would be--need to be to make this happen?
Mr. Reiskin. Yeah. We have submitted requests to the
President with our annual appropriations, first in 2005 and
again in 2006. In 2005, we were appropriated, through the D.C.
Appropriations Subcommittee, $8 million; subsequently in 2006,
an additional $5 million through D.C. Appropriations. As the
Congresswoman mentioned, we're awaiting the outcome for 2007.
There's potentially another $4 million or so.
In the requests that we will be making to OMB for the
President's 2008 budget, we will be seeking--and this is
roughly consistent with what we've projected in the past--$25
million in fiscal year 2008, $30 million in fiscal 2009 and $25
million in fiscal 2010. And from our standpoint, we're
indifferent to the source, whether it's D.C. Appropriations,
Justice Appropriations. That's the need that we've identified.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you. Let me--I mean, this doesn't
just serve the needs of D.C. residents, but people from around
the world who come to this city every day who could become
victims, certainly my constituents, you know, hundreds of
thousands who work in this city and who are coming to this city
every day as well. So this is a national concern. This isn't
just local, and I think the fact that we have funded it--and we
can be sure that Mr. Wolf, who couldn't be here today, and Ms.
Norton and myself will continue to push to at least make sure
that the Federal part of this continues to be a priority.
And Ms. Mohammed, we appreciate what you've done organizing
the other mothers of murder victims to draw attention on the
unsolved crimes in the city. You put a face on it, and that's
one of the reasons we're here today.
Ms. Mohammed. Sir, what I'm trying to ascertain for the
mothers is the money that's been appropriated is $25 million,
and exactly how far do we get up to that data? Are we at first
base or are we just hitting the ball?
Chairman Tom Davis. Let me just ask Mr. Reiskin.
From the city's perspective, it's not going to be all
Federal. There's going to be a city component to this
obviously, and there's an agreement to fulfill our
responsibilities, and I'm just asking what that equation is so
that----
Mr. Reiskin. Yeah. The overall proposal that we're putting
forth is roughly two-thirds funding from the District, one-
third from the Federal Government. To date, there's been
roughly $23 million committed. It's $13 from the Federal side,
$10 from the District side. That's through fiscal year 2007.
That may grow depending on how the----
Chairman Tom Davis. But you're looking at about 80-85
million from the Federal Government over time, about a third of
what it's going to cost to----
Mr. Reiskin. The overall cost of the project is roughly
$250 million. What we've received to date is allowing us--it
allowed us to get through the program design--the program
analysis, the site analysis, the process mapping, and now the
design contract. The design contract alone is on the order of
$12 to $15 million. So, with the funds to date, we will have
the design complete. The construction is really the balance of
what we----
Chairman Tom Davis. And that'll be in a larger chunk from--
--
Mr. Reiskin. Right. The construction would start in fiscal
year 2008.
Chairman Tom Davis. Would the city do a bond issue for this
or would they just pay it out of operating capital or----
Mr. Reiskin. Right now, it's projected to come out of
general obligation bonds, but how that would be funded will
depend on how that capital budget is developed over the next 5
years.
Ms. Mohammed. That's the issue. That's the issue for the
parents, Congressman Davis and Congressman Norton. They can
filibuster all they want. I've got to go back and tell the
mothers that we're going to have an erected building, fully
staffed, and something by what year? Are we talking 2020 or
what? That's what we want to know. I mean, I want to be alive.
Chairman Tom Davis. Let me ask that, and then I have a
followup question to that.
What's the time period here where we can expect this to be
up and operating if everything proceeds on time?
Mr. Reiskin. We've just executed the design contract that's
a, roughly, 14-month process. Construction would be roughly 2
years. So it's the end of calendar year 2009 when the facility
is projected to open.
Chairman Tom Davis. Let me ask this question. We have a
backlog of which, I think, Ms. Mohammed and the people she's
working with are concerned about. What would it take in an
additional Federal expenditure, let's say, over the next year
to add personnel or resources at the current FBI crime lab to
clear up this backlog?
Mr. DiZinno. I don't know the exact number of the backlog,
so once we have that exact number, we certainly could make a
better----
Chairman Tom Davis. Chief, do you have any idea what the
backlog is?
Chief Ramsey. It's roughly about 1,500 sex cases, I'm told,
and we have identified about 100 old homicide cases, to date,
that we think could yield some DNA. And certainly there are
more, but we have a team that's going back in time, looking at
all these cases, so that could actually----
Chairman Tom Davis. I appreciate that. That gives me a
ballpark. I think what our concern and I think what your
concern would be is, by the time you build this in 2009, some
of this stuff gets stale, DNA evidence. I mean it's always
there, but if we could just put forward just maybe an extra
million or something like that and get it in and clear up this
backlog, maybe we close some cases and put some people away and
prevent some other cases from coming up.
Does that sound reasonable?
Mr. DiZinno. That's absolutely true, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. What I'm asking is, given what the
Chief has said the backlog may be--you don't have to do the
math here today----
Mr. DiZinno. Right.
Chairman Tom Davis [continuing]. Because--but if you could
get back to the committee and then we'll get back with Mr. Wolf
and see what that difference is and what it might be and what
an extra hundred thousand, million, whatever it is, would do to
clear up this backlog just for the mothers and the victims and
the families and everything else. Even if we could just clear
the backlog up right now, it would make things a lot easier
while we're building that.
Ms. Mohammed, do you agree with that?
Ms. Mohammed. I think that's fine.
I want to say just one last thing on behalf of mothers and
families of murdered victims. Doris Moore's sister--she's a
doctor at George Washington Hospital--was killed in 1969. Her
murder is still open on the books. The Chief knows we have
almost 5,000 unsolved murders in the District of Columbia. Mark
Sitz' father was killed in 1977. He's a teacher in Prince
George's County. When I leave here today, they're going to ask
me whether or not, you know, the DNA that was collected during
that particular time--which was eons ago--whether or not it
will be relevant, whether or not it will be used, or what kind
of hope do they have before they die? And I don't know of these
thousand cases--this 1,000 cases and the 300, or whether or not
the DNA is still relevant or old enough, but I want to be able
to tell people who have been waiting since the sixties and the
seventies that there's still hope and that people still care,
because their hearts are still burning because these murders
remain unsolved.
Chairman Tom Davis. Well, that's correct. And look, we're
not sure, even if you process the DNA, you're going to solve
the case; but it puts you closer to it, and without it, it's
impossible.
So, Chief, if we could just go back and take a look at the
backlog, whatever years it goes back, and Ms. Norton, it seems
to me, if we could put a little bit of money up front to clear
the pending cases while we're looking at this, then we could
make some headway and get to some of these while the evidence
is still a little bit fresh, because waiting 2 or 3 more years
makes these cases more difficult, wouldn't you agree, to solve?
Mr. DiZinno. Yes, sir. Mr. Chairman, we will work with MPD
to provide that information.
Chairman Tom Davis. Well, get that information to us. We
will share it with the other relevant congressional committees
and just see if there's anything we might be able to do to try
to clear up the background. It seems to me Ms. Mohammed and
some of the people that she's worked with are lighting a fire
in this city for people who say, ``Look, give us the resources
and we will try to work with the city to do that,'' and Chief,
we'll try to make your job a little bit easier because I know
it's got to be as frustrating for you as it is for the victims.
Chief Ramsey. Yes, sir, it is. And I appreciate all of your
help in not only getting the lab but in dealing with issues
like the backlog and so forth, and we'll do the very best we
can to push this through as fast as we can so that we can, one
way or the other at least, let these families know whether or
not it yielded any results or not, and we're obligated to do
that.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much.
Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate your line
of questioning because it's in the nature of trying to solve
the problem because, in light of what the chairman said, if I
go back to the testimony with you, Mr. Chief Ramsey, we talked
about the turnaround times above average. Then I would take it
that means that you are closing in on the backlog cases, and
you're closing cases on a timely basis that come in and have
the ordinary priority; for example, somebody--you've got a
suspect.
Is that what that means? What does it mean about processing
a criminal? Are you all just lumping all of it together and
coming up with an average processing, I mean with an above-
average processing time? Mr. DiZinno.
Mr. DiZinno. [No response.]
Chief Ramsey. Yeah, maybe; so because I think you're
talking about the reduction----
Ms. Norton. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm still trying to find out--
see, what the chairman is talking about--I had this very same
experience when I chaired the AOC. There was this humongous
backlog, and the first thing to do is to separate out the
backlog from the new cases or else you just feed the
backlogging, and you never get out of it. Then, when the
backlog is gone and you no longer are building backlog, you're
on time. And I can't figure out whether the process the
chairman is suggesting might be used to work here; and it would
if, for example, you are able, with this new personnel and with
the MOU, to turn around today in a fairly timely way, and then
we wouldn't at least be building the kind of backlog we were
before. And that's what I'm trying to get at.
Mr. DiZinno. Yes, Congresswoman Norton, I think there's two
separate issues, as you said: eliminating the backlog and then
providing timely service for cases that are submitted.
Depending on the backlog, the size of the backlog, and the
number of new cases submitted versus the funding and resources
provided, we would certainly work with MPD to, No. 1, try to
eliminate their backlog and, No. 2, attempt to provide a more
timely response to the current cases that they would submit.
Ms. Norton. They said it's more and more timely,
apparently, with the new efficiencies. Now, let me make sure I
have these--this backlog.
I think Congress would be very sympathetic with the notion
that all of these cases or so many of these cases are
disproportionately sex cases, sex crime cases, and that means
if you commit a sex crime in the District of Columbia, you
probably don't have to worry about it, or at least many of you
do not have to worry about it given the kind of evidence that's
necessary. 1,500 backlogged sex crime cases, and did you say
100 cold homicide cases, Chief?
Chief Ramsey. Right now, we have 100 that we've identified
that could possibly yield some meaningful DNA. Not all homicide
cases have DNA from the offender. A lot of the evidence is from
the victim, not from the offender. So you have to go through
these, and it's not guaranteed that you'll wind up with
anything that will lead you to an offender. But these are ones
that we've identified that would be worth submitting to see
whether or not we could yield, but I think it--yield anything
useful--but I think it's important to clarify that. Because of
television and the way in which people kind of view this is,
they think that in every single case you're going to be able to
identify a suspect through DNA, and that's simply just not
true, so--but it will make a huge difference, a huge difference
in our ability to solve crime.
Ms. Norton. And at least it would mean that we're not doing
the same old thing we've been doing ever since I was a child,
just get more--more policemen and then looking to you and
saying, ``Well, how come you haven't solved it? You've got more
policemen.'' what is the definition of ``stupidity?'' You keep
doing the same thing and hope and expect to get a different
result. More police, as important as they are, must not be the
answer in the District of Columbia if you compare the number of
police here to other jurisdictions.
I congratulate you, Ms. Mohammed, on your questions. I'll
say to the District of Columbia we have--what was the total,
Mr. Reiskin? What's the total amount the Federal Government has
come forward with now and the total amount D.C. has come
forward with?
Mr. Reiskin. To date, we have $13 million from the Federal
Government, with $4 million pending, and $10 million from the
District government.
Ms. Norton. That's disgraceful. That's just disgraceful.
That means the city also has not given the priority. The city
needs all of those involved, but----
Mr. Reiskin. If I could clarify----
Ms. Norton. Here's the Federal Government. It's not even
our crime lab, and we have a--in this climate, we've come up
with more money than the District of Columbia itself has
appropriated? There's something wrong with that picture.
Mr. Reiskin. If I could clarify, in the most recent capital
budget that was sent to Congress, there was another $150
million of local capital funds identified for this project.
Ms. Norton. So you are testifying that you all are now
appropriating in this year's budget $150 million, and it's
already passed the council?
Mr. Reiskin. In the capital budget, there's proposed
capital spending for the outyears beyond fiscal year 2007. In
that proposed spending which has been approved by the council,
sent to Congress, is $150 million, $75 million each in fiscal
years 2008 and 2009.
Ms. Norton. It's going to be very difficult for me to
continue to come back and get $5 million chunks of money from
the Federal Government unless I'm finally able to say here's
what the District is putting up for its own forensic lab. So I
just want to say that for the record, because I regard this as
the only new idea. This very old idea is the only new idea I've
heard from----
Ms. Mohammed. Congresswoman Norton.
Ms. Norton. Yes.
Ms. Mohammed. Please excuse me; that if I recall, we were
told at one point that the--Mayor Williams was coming up here
to request $150 million for the 2007 budget for the crime lab,
but by the time he got here, it had changed to a new downtown
library, and even the Chief spoke to that. We were just very
disheartened as parents, but let me just give you all a quick
real example.
My son Imtiaz Mohammed was killed on October 28, 2004. The
person was finally arrested after he killed another victim in
July--or was it June--2005. When he was arrested, at the
arraignment, the judge asked that--or the magistrate or
whatever they called him--asked that DNA samples be sent and
brought back within 30 days. It just came back 2 weeks ago. So,
so much for----
Ms. Norton. I think that says it all.
Ms. Mohammed [continuing]. Speed.
Ms. Norton. Well, your own cross-examination, I must say,
Ms. Mohammed, has gotten from Mr. Reiskin an ending target date
of 2009, is that right--a target to completely--to complete the
building of a forensic lab?
Mr. Reiskin. That's correct. It will be the end of calendar
year 2009.
Ms. Norton. The end of calendar year 2009.
I just think that with a city that is boasting--what is
it--all kinds of surpluses, I can understand why, in a real
sense, you know, what's immediately in people's faces gets
surpluses, but as I said in my opening statement, analytically,
after decades of throwing more money at police, you would have
thought people would say, ``Well, wait a minute. Let's get
fresh eyes and look at this. Is there something we aren't
doing?'' And what bothers me is the notion of doing the same
thing. I have no idea if this bill will, in fact, have the
desired effect, but I can't believe that it is preferable to
keep doing the same thing.
I have only a couple more questions. The chairman wants to
get out of here. He's been very--he has been very, very
gracious.
We have not said anything about the effect of forensics on
civil matters. Somebody has been--has had an accident. Someone
has another civil matter where benefits may be involved, but
forensics--forensic evidence is necessary in order to get the
benefits for the survivors.
How often does that occur, and how do we deal with that
need for forensic evidence?
Mr. Wainstein. I'll go ahead and just step up. I'm not----
Ms. Norton. Does the FBI have anything to do with it? Who
does it?
Mr. Wainstein. The concern of our obligation----
Ms. Norton. You all don't deal with anything civil.
Mr. DiZinno. Correct. The FBI only performs forensic
analysis for criminal casework.
Ms. Norton. Does D.C. have to go to private forensic
laboratories for that kind of analysis even if it's a civil
matter in court?
Mr. Wainstein. We handle civil matters on the Federal side.
It might be----
Ms. Norton. I can't hear you, sir.
Mr. Wainstein. Oh, I'm sorry. My apologies.
We handle civil matters in Federal court, but the A.G.'s
Office would handle a lot of the civil matters where that might
come up, and maybe you could put the question to Mr.
Spagnoletti about that.
Ms. Norton. On the limit on the number of evidence--and I
can understand that. Sometimes, I'm sure, if you had your own
forensic lab, there would be a limit on the number of pieces of
evidence, but I'm sure you'd make that choice, and I'm sure you
prioritize the kind of evidence you need in an informed
fashion.
Is there a formula, or do you look at the case and then
decide what kind of evidence, since you can only do, what is
it, four or five pieces? What kind of evidence do you need? How
is that--how is that duty performed, and how is that decision
made?
Chief Ramsey. Yes. I believe here--and of course I have my
person who runs my forensic section behind me, so I'll ask him
to tap me on the shoulder if I go astray here. But because you
can recover numerous items at any scene, when you take a look
and review the evidence, you really try to look at what do you
think might have some kind of, you know, DNA that could be
recovered, and that's a decision that's made by those that
process the scene.
Now, that leads to another point that I just want to kind
of get on the record. Building a lab is one thing. Maintaining
it and continuing to have the proper training and so forth so
that people stay at an acceptable level is another. That's got
to also include people assigned to the mobile crime or crime
scene investigation section, because how they process the
scene, how they collect the evidence initially is important.
There's nothing they can do with it in any lab if they screw up
the crime scene. It makes it very, very difficult.
So the training for our people has to constantly be
budgeted so that we can make sure those people that we've
charged with that responsibility process that scene
appropriately, package it appropriately, store it
appropriately, all those kinds of things that are needed so
that the people in the lab have a chance of getting useful
evidence.
So I just wanted to throw that out there because that's a
huge piece that sometimes gets overlooked.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. That's very important.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Tom Davis. Ms. Norton, I thank you very much. I
want to thank everybody for being involved with this.
Mr. DiZinno, you're going to confer with Chief Ramsey and
maybe get some ballpark in terms of clearing this backlog. I
think--you know, just so many of us see that you don't want to
start off in a hole from day one, and maybe some resources
could be directed in that direction. I know you'd like to see
that.
Mr. DiZinno. Yes.
Chairman Tom Davis. Thank you very much. Again,
congratulations, Mr. Wainstein, on your promotion.
The hearing's adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:48 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[The prepared statements of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings and
Hon. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger follow:]
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