The Tucson Police Department opened a new $15.6 million state-of-the-art facility on the South Side Thursday for evidence storage and other uses.
The Evidence, Property and Identification Center is 75,000 square feet — an increase from the 16,000 square feet that employees worked in at police headquarters, officials said.
"This has been a long time coming," said Evidence Superintendent Nancy McKay-Hills.
"Before, it was very cramped — technicians had a 6-foot wide space to work with incoming evidence. There was no space to efficiently work."
That shouldn't be a problem now or in the future, as the department has made the best use of the space available using moving shelves that are 16 feet high, which allows four times more evidence to be stored than current capacity.
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About 1 million items currrently are in evidence, McKay-Hills said. Those items vary from candy bars in a shoplifting case to kitchen sinks, hot tubs and even RVs.
The security at the facility, in which only certain people have access to certain areas, makes it similar to Fort Knox, McKay-Hills said jokingly.
The facility is divided into sections, with areas for money and valuables, firearms, narcotics, a vehicle processing bay, property intake area, and designated office space for crime-scene technicians.
Additionally, fingerprints for arrests made by the department will be run at center.
Attorney General Terry Goddard was on hand at the opening of the facility and said he was thoroughly impressed.
"Evidence is the independent verifier that a crime has been committed or not committed," he said.
"Some agencies have had evidence disappear from storage units. This shows how important the accurate presentation of forensic evidence has become."
He said the department's decision to open such a facility puts Tucson police ahead of the curve, as state law likely will require that biological evidence be held and preserved for a longer period of time.
Evidence will be moved to the facility in about one month, McKay-Hills said. It will take four to six months to sign in all the evidence.
"There are a lot of parts in the Police Department that you see on the news as far as officers out there risking their lives," said Chief Richard Miranda.
"But it's important to have the support system to ensure that cases are prosecuted."
