Columbus Crime Lab will soon expand testing capacity

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – The Columbus Crime Lab will soon be doubling down on its testing capacity.

At Tuesday night’s meeting, the Columbus City Council approved a crime lab request to lease a second gas mass spectrometer.

The device is used to analyze evidence.

The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors recently purchased the same type of equipment for the city’s Crime Lab to help them improve testing times and get cases to court sooner.

The Columbus lab handles evidence testing for several agencies, and with the two new machines and the old one for backup, they should be able to get quicker results and help foot the $152,000 lease cost.

“Actually, it profits the city, since we charge other cities and communities for processing their evidence, and this additional equipment will increase the flow-through of those cases, so it will actually pay for itself and bring revenue to the city,” said James Brigham, Chief Financial Officer of Columbus.

Columbus operates one of the few crime labs in this area of the state and lightens the caseload for the State Crime Lab in Pearl.

For 24/7 news and updates, follow us on Facebook and Twitter