Public Employee Press

Local 375’s CSI sleuths
Crime scientists

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is adding 400 Criminalists—forensic experts in DNA analysis
—at its new state-of-the-art facility.

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Once upon a time, police detectives and private eyes — Sam Spade and Colombo of media fame come to mind — relied on instincts and hunches to solve the crime.

But these days, as the popular CSI television shows demonstrate, it’s the scientific sleuths who make the evidence stick to the bad guys.

“The perfect crime is getting harder and harder to commit,” said Jason Kolowski, a Criminalist 4 at the Forensic Biology Laboratory of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

“There is always evidence,” said Criminalist 2 Shannon Soltysiak, a colleague and fellow member of Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375.

Some 150 Criminalists like Kolowski and Soltysiak — whose ranks are to grow to 400 within four years — are the backbone of the medical examiner’s new $290 million, 340,000 square-foot facility that opened last year near Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.

The nation’s largest lab specializing in forensic DNA analysis, the facility will be able to handle 20,000 criminal cases a year (up from 3,000) — more than the FBI. The building also houses units devoted to administration, information technology, crime reconstruction and non-DNA forensic biology.

“These members are on the cutting edge of DNA analysis,” Local 375 President Claude Fort said.

“When you hear them describe their work, you get the impression that advancing criminal investigation science makes it nearly impossible for anyone to get away with murder or a serious crime,” said 2nd Vice President Michelle Keller, who works closely with the local chapter at OCME.

Newly hired Criminalists get up to six months of training in a rigorous in-house course, said Criminalist 4 Lisa Dziegielewski, who heads the team of instructors. Criminalist 2s also take anin-house course when they seek promotions. (Employees promote to Criminalist 3 and Criminalist 4 through exams.)

The lab’s eighth floor, devoted to training, is modeled after the areas where Criminalists work. Workers must wear protective gowns, gloves and goggles to ensure they don’t taint the evidence.

Trainees learn how to extract samples of DNA, which contains our genetic makeup, from blood, saliva, semen and skin cells. They also work with sexual assault kits, gathering DNA evidence from underwear, pubic hair and oral, anal and vaginal swab samples of bodily fluids. In the lab, light signals from heated samples are read by computer software. The forensic scientists compare such DNA evidence with the DNA profile of an individual, known as a DNA fingerprint. They use the results to identify suspects who have left evidence at a crime scene, exonerate people who are wrongly accused and identify victims of crimes.

Identifying 9/11 victims
Scientists created the first genetic fingerprint in 1985. Today, DNA analysis has become one of the top tools of forensic investigators, and matches are considered to be 99.9 percent accurate.

The work of the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner received a great deal of public attention because it used DNA samples to identify the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. In a job that continues after six years, OCME scientists have examined 20,000 human remains and identified nearly 1,600 of the 2,792 people who died in the 2001 tragedy.

“We were at the OCME facility on 30th Street,” said Kolow-ski, recalling the carnage the workers were exposed to after the attacks. “When they came in with a deceased cop or Firefighter, everything just stopped. It was very hard to deal with.”

As scientists, though, the Criminalists strive to keep their emotions in check. Investigators for the police and district attorneys are law enforcement workers, out to nail their suspects. On the other hand, the OCME Criminalists are employees of the Dept. of Health — impartial scientists who take particular pride in their objectivity. Their job is to use DNA samples to help determine whether a suspect is charged with a crime or set free.

Asako Ishii, a Criminalist 3, said she enjoys the prestige that the CSI show has brought to the profession, which years ago wasn’t considered very interesting by the public. In fact, a number of Criminalists have visited the television set and served as consultants.

Soft-spoken, Ishii joked that jurors seem surprised when she arrives in court to testify dressed modestly rather than wearing a revealing designer suit like the TV stars.

Ishii said the show is largely accurate. But she said television exaggerates the pace of forensic investigations. “The science is fairly accurate,” she said, “but the time frame is compressed. You don’t do DNA work in five minutes.”