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State awards $50M to improve Philly’s forensic crime lab and police surveillance systems

City leaders said the funds would change the way they approach forensic analysis and allow them to process evidence and solve crimes more quickly.

Crime Scene Unit officers collecting and marking evidence after a shooting earlier this year.
Crime Scene Unit officers collecting and marking evidence after a shooting earlier this year.Read moreAlejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

State leaders announced Thursday that they plan to give $50 million in federal funds to Philadelphia law enforcement, a significant cash infusion intended to improve the city’s forensic and digital policing systems amid the continued wave of crushing gun violence.

The funds, left over from the state’s federal coronavirus aid, will be distributed to the Philadelphia Police Department, District Attorney’s Office, and SEPTA. The grants will allow each agency to significantly expand the size and scope of their forensic and intelligence labs, hire more staff, and invest in equipment that they say will help solve crimes more quickly.

Gathered inside the Mill Creek Playground, where rec center employee Tiffany Fletcher was shot and killed by a stray bullet this summer, city and state officials celebrated the investment, saying it would help the city seek justice for the thousands of Philadelphians affected by crime and gun violence.

“It is sad enough when we are overwhelmed with our neighbors being victims of violence, but it’s even sadder when we cannot resolve these issues and cannot give them the peace that the people responsible are held accountable,” said State Rep. Joanna McClinton, a Philadelphia Democrat who is expected to be named House majority leader.

The Police Department will receive $25 million to upgrade the department’s forensic crime lab, which city leaders have long said is understaffed and in need of better technology to process evidence more quickly.

The money, nearly double the forensic lab’s annual budget, will allow the department to hire 120 new personnel and forensic scientists, buy new equipment to process DNA, fingerprints, firearms, and extract cell phone data, among other things. The department is in the early planning stages of building a new crime lab. Mike Garvey, director of forensic science for the department, said a project timeline remains unclear, but the money would allow police to immediately start hiring and buying equipment for it.

The lab, which now has about 216 employees, is about a third of the size it should be, and is processing more evidence than ever as the number of shootings increases, Garvey said. This year alone, Garvey said police are on track to have recovered more than 6,000 crime guns, up from 4,000 just three years ago, and upwards of 50,000 bullet casings.

But there is a significant backlog in evidence being processed, Garvey said, with rape kits often taking about 100 days to be analyzed, and other items sometimes taking up to a year.

He compared it to a person going to a hospital for treatment, but instead of seeing a doctor, “you were put onto a gurney, and you sat in the hallway for a year, hoping that someone was eventually going to treat you.”

The District Attorney’s Office will receive $20 million, allowing it to expand digital surveillance and triple the size of its intelligence lab, which extracts defendants’ cell phone data and monitors the social media accounts of would-be shooters, among other things. The office will invest in new license-plate readers, additional cameras, upgrades to crime-scene kits, and new staff.

Because witnesses and victims are often unwilling to cooperate and testify in a shooting case, prosecutors are relying more heavily on digital intelligence and video to secure convictions, said Bill Fritze, head of the DA’s Gun Violence Task Force.

“In an age where witness intimidation and just plain old fear of coming to court is a big issue, think of how much further we are moving into the future,” Fritze said.

Additionally, SEPTA will get about $5 million, which it will use to install software for its ZeroEyes pilot, an artificial-intelligence surveillance program said to detect guns within seconds of being brandished. The grant will also support overtime pay for transit police, and comes as violent crime across the transit system has significantly increased. From 2019 to 2021, robberies and aggravated assaults on the Philadelphia region’s transit system spiked more than 80%.

While the money is a small percentage of the Police Department’s $788 million city budget, about 95% of the annual budget goes to employee salaries, and the department relies heavily on state and federal grants to fund its additional needs. Garvey said the department intends to apply for more grants and seek money from City Council to sustain the investment and new employees.

The announcement comes as the city’s gun violence crisis continues. So far this year, 489 people have died by homicide — 8% lower than last year’s record-breaking total but still nearly double the number recorded in 2014. City leaders have long said expanding and upgrading forensic technology is key to solving and preventing crimes.

“Our cries were heard,” Mayor Jim Kenney said.

The award comes from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency and is a portion of the state’s American Rescue Plan funds, the federal money meant to help combat the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

State Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Philadelphia Democrat, said that come January, the state hopes to announce $109 million in additional funds for neighborhood-based antiviolence organizations in Philadelphia.

Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article.