The University Police Department celebrated the completion of a new evidence room Thursday that will feature a state-of-the-art computerized tracking system and consistent temperature regulation, University Police Lt. Mike Gibson said.
"It will be a huge improvement over the current system," Gibson said.
The evidence room, adjacent to the police department, will replace an older evidence room located within the police building.
According to Gibson, the current evidence room suffers temperature problems that could damage evidence and is about ten times smaller than the new facility.
"The current evidence room that we have is extremely small," Gibson said. "It has some ventilation issues and huge temperature variations -- we have outgrown it."
University spokesperson Carol Wood said she expects the new facility will contribute to University Police Chief Paul Norris's goal for increased efficiency in the police department.
"In making these enhancements I think one of Chief Norris's goals was to increase the operating efficiencies within the department," Wood said. "When it comes to dealing with critical evidence, these changes build on improvement initiatives the chief and his staff have been undertaking in the University Police Department."
According to Gibson, evidence will be transferred from the old room to the new room over the next few months. Before moving the evidence, Gibson said the police department will install a new security system and assign a number to each evidence item for tracking.
"All the evidence will be barcoded and tracked through the computer," Gibson said. "It will also allow us to introduce computerized evidence tracking where now they do that manually."
Completion of the evidence room was announced at a ceremony last Thursday in which the University community was invited to view some of the room's new features, including pass-through evidence lockers and refrigerated evidence lockers.
According to Gibson, the new lockers will allow officers to package and submit evidence 24 hours a day without contacting the evidence custodian. The evidence will be stored safely in lockers until the custodians can record it.
Evidence that requires refrigeration includes physical evidence recovery kits from rape scenes and blood samples, Gibson said.
"All the temperature controls are under lock as well, so nobody can adjust the temperature," he said. "The entire room is on generator back-up."
According to Gibson, University police worked with Charlottesville police in the design of the new evidence room.
"We are not in competition," Gibson said. "We consulted with them when we were designing our room and integrated a lot of their ideas"
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