Bensalem Police Dept. Expanding Its DNA Testing, Cataloguing Facility
By Brad Segall
BENSALEM, Pa. (CBS) -- "CSI" comes to Bucks County, as the Bensalem Police Department takes the wraps off a new tool in the arsenal to get criminals off the streets faster.
Three years ago Bensalem launched its own DNA database, which reduced the amount of time to get returns on DNA samples -- from one year, to 30 days.
Now, the police department is part of a pilot program that can turn those samples around in just ninety minutes.
Bensalem public safety director Fred Harran says the BodeHITS Rapid DNA Initiative will take DNA testing to the next level.
"With our other program that we had running, it would have taken maybe thirty days to get the results. And God only knows how many other crimes would have been committed. Now, in 90 minutes we're stopping the crime and the criminal literally in their tracks," Harran says.
He says this program is a first of its kind, and Bensalem is the only department in this area to have it.
It's mostly used for property crimes in which police can get a sample from evidence at the scene and then quickly match that to someone who may be in the database.
