A grand opening for the statewide Rapid DNA Investigative Lead program was held May 27 at the Durant Police Department, and the machine will help local law enforcement agencies solve crimes.
DPD said it is a partnership with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and it marks an important advancement in rapid forensic technology and public safety services for Oklahoma communities.
Durant Police Chief Jesse Petty first announced the machine during a city council meeting in February.
“How that works is, imagine if you have a burglary that you have some DNA left behind like on a broken glass or blood or something like that,” Petty said, during the council meeting. “If we can swab that and stick it into this machine, within 90 minutes, if you’ve been encoded, if you’ve ever been in the system for anything before, then that’s going to flag and start giving us suspects, so that narrows the window down. Even if you had an unidentified body somewhere, same thing, you could swab that and narrow that down. This is almost like stuff you see on TV, and we have the opportunity to host that.”
At last week’s grand opening, Petty said the unveiling of this technology and placement of the machine at DPD represents progress.
“It represents partnerships and it represents purpose and before anything else, I want to offer our sincere gratitude to the Choctaw Nation Public Safety Department for joining this partnership with us and to OSBI, I say thank you and thank you for your leadership, your trust and thank you for your commitment to the innovation, to justice and to the future of public safety in Oklahoma,” Petty said.
Petty said that when OSBI Deputy Director Steven Carter first approached DPD, the department knew that this was something very important and purposeful.
“We were excited for what this Rapid DNA technology could do, excited for the capabilities it would bring and excited for the cases it could help us solve, excited for the victims it could help serve, but even more than that, we were truly humbled,” Petty said. “Humbled by the confidence OSBI placed in our department, humbled by the opportunity to stand as partners on this initiative and humbled by the responsibility to help lead policing into the next generation.”
Petty said the equipment represents more than just science, it represents trust, cooperation and accountability.
“It represents a commitment to justice and through these partnerships with this equipment, we protect,” Petty said. “Through these partnerships, we build trust. Through these partnerships, we strengthen our capabilities. We multiply our efforts. We force multiply. We protect communities and we improve the quality of life for the people in which we serve and through these partnerships, we continue forging our path in the policing into the 21st century because our obligation still remains the same today, an obligation to seek justice for victims, an obligation to protect the vulnerable, an obligation to stand between danger and our communities and an obligation to never stop moving forward in the pursuit of public safety.”
OSBI Director Greg Mashburn also spoke of building partnerships and working together to serve the communities.
“This is just another opportunity that we have to roll out this program here in Durant and what we’ve seen was we’ve rolled out this program through the help of our legislative partners to roll this out statewide is immediate success of solving cases, generating investigative leads quicker so that we can get justice for our community members and it’s an exciting time,” Mashburn said.
Petty said the department has already had success with the machine.
“So, it’s definitely doing what it needs to do,” Petty said.
Beth Deen, Rapid DNA program supervisor, said the instrument can develop a DNA profile in 90 minutes.
“So, an approved operator can come in, run a sample,” Deen said. “Once a sample run is done, a good profile is suitable to be searched in the statewide Rapid DNA database to potentially provide investigative lead information back to law enforcement agencies in under two hours.”
According to Deen, DPD already has several operators trained to utilize the instrument. A three-hour accredited class to be certified to use the instrument is available.
“That training is open to any law enforcement agencies,” Deen said. “Whether they want to train patrol or detectives or if they have civilian employees, they can come to that class and be certified.”
