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Police commission backs DOJ grants for cold-case DNA, backlog reduction and ShotSpotter expansion
Summary
The commission recommended Board approval to accept $424,107 (NIJ cold-case DNA), $320,274 (DNA backlog reduction) and a $750,000 COPS technology grant for ShotSpotter expansion; department staff said the NIJ grant will review 100 cases and ShotSpotter adds roughly 2 square miles of coverage.
The San Francisco Police Commission on Oct. 20 voted to recommend that the Board of Supervisors approve three federal grants totaling $1,494,381 aimed at cold-case work, laboratory capacity and gunshot-detection technology.
Item 5: The commission backed acceptance of $424,107 from the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, for a "solving cold cases with DNA" program and an amendment to the salary ordinance to add three part-time investigator positions. Department staff said the grant will fund examination of about 100 cases (a mix of homicide and sexual-assault evidence) with an eye toward upgrading DNA marker profiles to be uploadable to national databases. "We're gonna take a 100 cases... the homicide cases range from the 1960s all the way to the 1990s," a department representative told the commission.
Item 6: The commission recommended acceptance of a $320,274 NIJ forensic DNA backlog reduction grant intended to increase laboratory throughput. The motion passed without objection.
Item 7: The commission also approved a recommendation to accept a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, to expand the ShotSpotter gunshot-detection system. Lieutenant Nikaya Ali explained current coverage (about 3.3 square miles across Bayview, Mission and Northern districts), and said the grant would add roughly 2 square miles, with deployment of additional workstations and mobile interfaces for supervisors. "This system... listens for gunfire. It alerts the officers and dispatchers ... the alert takes place roughly 8 to 10 seconds," Lieutenant Ali said, adding the system can cut response time by several minutes compared with waiting for citizen reports.
Commissioners asked about case backlogs, age of evidence and how backlog definitions are being applied. Department staff said results will be prioritized by solvability potential and that some homicides and sexual-assault cases will be re-examined using newer DNA markers.
All three recommendatory votes were recorded in the transcript as passing "without objection"; the commission will send the items to the Board of Supervisors for final acceptance and appropriation as required (the NIJ award language referenced amending ordinance "191-10" for salary changes).
