(November 30, 20080—Police in Austin have joined a small group of police departments around the country that are using DNA testing to solve routine property crimes.
DNA evidence such as saliva or drops of blood has helped Austin police crack otherwise hard-to-solve cases.
Detectives say that in several of the rare instances in which they collected DNA evidence at property crime scenes, the evidence later led to arrests or generated more clues in cases that probably would have remained unsolved.
Police say they have submitted DNA evidence from about 50 property crime scenes in the city this year and identified 10 suspects by comparing it with DNA profiles in a national database of criminals, which is a tiny percentage of the nearly 38,000 property crimes committed in the city each year.
Among major Texas cities, Austin has the only department collecting and testing DNA samples in property crime cases.
The city opened its new crime lab in 2004 and has a small case backlog.
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