All 40 Bucks County Police Departments Team Up To Create DNA Database

Solving property crimes across Bucks County is about to get a whole lot easier, according to officials.

On Tuesday, members of the Bucks County Police Chiefs Association, Assistant District Attorney Matt Weintraub and the Bucks County Commissioners announced that all 40 of the county’s police departments are now using an interconnected DNA database. The system became active this summer and will annually cost more than $600,000, which is spread out over the various communities and hopefully funded in the future public-private partnerships.

“Today, we are committing to justice and action,” Weintraub told a group of reporters gathered inside courtroom 440 inside the new Justice Center in Doylestown.

Fred Harran, public safety director in Bensalem and vice president of the chiefs’ association, explained that his township has been using the BodeHITS system since 2010 and has solved a long list of cases by making DNA links to other crimes where genetic evidence was entered into their database. He said expanding the system’s use to every single police department in the 98th-most populous county in the United States will help solve more property crimes than ever before.

“It’s not a good time to be a criminal in Bucks County,” he said.

Harran proudly noted that all of Bucks County’s police departments have bought into the program, the first in the nation to link an entire county.

All of the county’s 600 police officers are trained to take DNA samples. After being voluntarily obtained, the swabs are turned over to an evidence custody officer and sent via FedEx to BodeHITS lab in Virginia to be cataloged into the local database. The database is run by the Lab Corp.-owned BodeHITS company in Virginia.

Officials stated DNA swab results for the constantly updated Bucks County database will be turned around within 30 days of being sent to the lab.

The Pennsylvania State Police, who operate the lab that currently receives much of the county’s samples, will continue to test and catalog DNA evidence from violent crimes. Harran noted that the lab can take nine to 18 months to test samples and provide a return to local police.

While the federal government operates its own CODIS DNA database that is searchable by police agencies nationwide, officials said samples submitted to the nationwide system are obtained only after certain convictions and often do not include samples from those convicted of all-too-common property crimes.

The mouth swab sample collection is done on a completely voluntary basis, Weintraub said. He added that people can refuse to have their DNA taken for the purpose of the database and even request to have it removed.

Officials displayed a waiver requesting permission from those who police want to obtain a sample from. In some cases, a search warrant can be used to obtain DNA swabs if the person police want to sample is not cooperating and a reasonable case can be made before a judge.

It’s DNA databases like Bucks County’s that the American Civil Liberties Union has raised privacy and civil liberties concerns over in the past decade. Harran said that Bucks County police agencies have come up with regulations to make sure the rights of those who have DNA swabs taken are not violated.

Officials outlined cases where a DNA samples collected during Bensalem burglary investigations has already been used to help solve similar incidents in Buckingham and Falls Township. They also noted a case where Lower Gwynedd, Montgomery County police were able to clear a suspect after they tested blood found at the scene of a burglary.

Weintraub made sure to point out the importance the database played in making sure the wrong person was not arrested in connection with the Lower Gwynedd burglary.

Since Bensalem started the program in 2010, over 13,000 DNA samples have been obtained and the database played a role in 400 case investigations. Over the summer, Bensalem alone submitted 150 DNA samples in just one month.

“We’ve been able to solve crimes that wouldn’t otherwise be solvable,” Harran said.

Bristol Township police Acting Lt. Ralph Johnson said when the program was in its early stages in late spring that the database would likely help his town’s department solve even more burglaries and car break-ins.

Harran said he hopes to get other Philadelphia-area counties on board so they can link their database to help solve even more crimes.