The Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection is taking its forensic lab on the road. This week, the department offered reporters an inside look at a new investigative tool — a van equipped with crime-lab equipment that local police departments around the state can ca ll when they need onsite forensic testing. The state used about $1 million in federal COVID emergency funding to purchase and outfit the lab-on-wheels. Officials said the mobile laboratory will be available to provide testing equipment and services to local police departments to help pursue early investigative leads. Its first assignment was analyzing DNA and ballistic evidence in the December shooting at Brown University and the related shooting of a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “That case was a great example of what modern forensic science should be — responsive, collaborative and ready to go where it’s needed. This van is really an extension to our laboratory,” Lucinda Lopes-Phelan, deputy director of identification services at DESPP, said during a press conference in New Britain Thursday, where she and state forensic scientists showed off the mobile lab’s capabilities. The van will be stationed in New Britain for the next few weeks, but officials said it’s deployable to wherever it’s needed across the state. Requests are prioritized through DESPP and Dr. Guy Vallaro, director of the department’s division of scientific services. The van’s capabilities include rapid DNA testing, ballistic identification that’s linked up to the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) database, and cellphone analysis technology. The New Britain police department recently used the van’s NIBIN technology to connect a gun obtained during an arrest to previous incidents in Hartford and East Hartford within a few hours. “Having it right there at the [police department’s] disposal really cuts down on travel time to get to the lab, inputting the evidence into the lab, and just overall, really provides an early investigative lead,” said Amy Beach, a forensic science examiner in the DNA department at DESPP. The mobile forensic service costs about $30,000 to operate annually. Vallaro originally came up with the idea during the pandemic, as a sort of socially-distanced workspace — so staff could still come in to work at the state’s forensic lab, but not risk spreading germs. It was paid for with funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. The van has since taken on an expanded role for the state forensic lab. Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz was on hand at Thursday’s event in New Britain to sing praises for DESPP’s new rolling services. “Our forensic lab and its tools like this mobile van make our forensic lab the envy across the country,” Bysiewicz said. “We constantly have inquiries from other states looking at the state of the art work that we do.” ...read more read less