FBI hopes new labs will polish its image

QUANTICO, Va. - The FBI opened the doors Thursday to a $155-million crime lab that gives the bureau state of the art technology for forensic police work, ranging from the latest DNA matching to analysis of muddy shoe prints.

The lab, seven years in the making, is another step in the FBI's recovery from allegations of shoddy science and poor worker performance, officials say.

The building's 650 workers are spread over five floors that cover more than 460,000 square feet, double the lab's size at its old headquarters location in downtown Washington. The lab is on the campus of the FBI Academy, its main training facility about 35 miles south of the capital.

For Dwight Adams, the lab's director, the key change is that evidence and forensic work is now completely separate from the regular office, with a 100 percent clean air supply that cuts down on contamination and elevators used only to transfer items being examined.

"This building has been specifically designed for laboratory work," Adams told reporters during a media tour of the facility, which FBI director Robert Mueller was dedicating today. "Not only have we brought our world-class scientists here, we have a world-class facility."

The lab has equipment for DNA sampling and huge evidence bays where entire semitrailer trucks and airplane fuselages can be pored over. There are thousands of samples of car paint for use in identifying vehicles and 5,000 firearms on hand for gun matching.

The lab's opening comes as the FBI continues to recover from allegations made by a whistle-blower in the mid 1990s about poor science, with an estimated 3,000 cases that may have been affected by the problems. One FBI lab technician has resigned for allegedly improperly testing 103 DNA samples, all of which are under bureau review.

Adams also said that the lab's quality assurance safeguards are top-notch and that he is stressing to employees that "their integrity, their performance . . . is paramount to everything we do."

"We're not out to prove a thing," Adams said. "We're out to provide the truth."

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