LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio (SCPR), a member-supported public media network. Hear our news on-air at our partner site:
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
After an LA Times headline like this--"LAPD's fingerprint lab isn't up to the task"--the best response is for the LAPD to start briefing city council members in a public meeting weekly about the fingerprint unit. And that's what the understaffed office is starting to do. It was found last month, via a confidential report obtained by the Times, that the Fingerprint Analysis Unit is woefully understaffed for the amount of work created by crimes and is sometimes too lax with evidence--some has been lost and at least two have been arrested falsely after sloppy work leading to a lawsuit, possibly a class action one. At about the same time this controversy hit the presses, City Controller Laura Chick announced the "disturbing" backlog of 7,000 rape-kits.