Patterson council commits to new Acadiana Crime Lab

PATTERSON — The City Council on Tuesday committed $93,000 to a new Acadiana Crime Lab, its share of the match required to obtain $25 million in state funding.

Bo Duhé, the district attorney for St. Mary, St. Martin and Iberia parishes, told the council that the lab plays a vital role in solving crimes, either by developing evidence against or exonerating a defendant.

“It’s really a tool for all sides,” Duhé said Tuesday.

The lab serves eight parishes, a number that also includes Lafayette, Acadia, Vermilion, St. Landry and Evangeline. The cases submitted for lab analysis number in the thousands each year.

But the current lab headquarters near Acadiana Regional Airport is inadequate, Duhé said. It’s smaller than the suggested ratio of 1,000 square feet for each lab technician recommended by the Department of Justice, and a leaky roof endangers thousands of files stored at the lab.

The new lab will require 1-1/2 to two years to building, Director Kevin Ardoin told the council.

Duhé and DAs representing the other parishes have been making the rounds at local government meetings to build a consensus for and a commitment to construction of a new lab.

And that will help the project receive a high priority from legislators developing the state’s capital outlay budget.

“By the end of the session,” Duhé said, “we need to demonstrate communities are committed to the lab.”

Officials came up with a formula for determining how much each local government should pay toward the $5 million match based on the number of cases submitted to the lab in 2019, the last year before COVID-19.

The total share of all governments in St. Mary would be more than $861,000 based on 1,069 cases. Patterson’s share, based on the 116 cases submitted by Patterson that year, would be $93,442.

Where Patterson will get the money hasn’t been determined. Duhé said private donations could play a role, and that it may be possible to split the payment over two years. Mayor
Rodney Grogan suggested that the money might come from the $2 million earmarked for Patterson in American Rescue Act Plan funding.

A resolution supporting construction of the new crime lab and com-mitting to the $93,442 passed unanimously on a voice vote.