Metro will use federal grant for DNA tests

Jace Radke

Monday, Sept. 27, 2004 | 11:01 a.m.

Metro Police will use a newly awarded $678,207 federal grant to enhance the department's ability to use DNA identification as a crime-fighting tool.

The Justice Department was scheduled to announce the grant as part of President Bush's $95 million DNA initiative.

In Las Vegas the money will go toward equipment and resources to work through a backlog of about 1,000 DNA samples held by Metro.

In addition, Metro and the Washoe County Sheriff's Office are scheduled to be awarded $80,233 and $247,357 respectively for improvements to criminal justice forensic services.

"DNA is a remarkable crime fighting tool," said Cheri Nolan, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs. "Many survivors and families of victims will get much-needed relief from years of waiting when DNA evidence identifies and convicts the perpetrators in their cases."

DNA evidence led to the Aug. 31 arrest of a 38-year-old man accused of committing a series of rapes in the late 1990s in the East Flamingo Road area, Metro Police said.

Dushon Green was booked into the Clark County jail on 34 counts of sexual assault-related crime after DNA evidence allegedly linked him to five sexual assaults between December 1996 and March 1998.

The grants are being awarded directly to the local jurisdictions through the National Institute of Justice, the research, development and evaluation component of the Justice Department.

Metro Police received more than $5.3 million dollars in federal grant monies in fiscal year 2003/2004, Officer Jose Montoya, Metro Police spokesman, said.

Federal grants to the department have spiked since 2001 because of Homeland Security grants and Las Vegas being named as a high-intensity drug trafficking area, or HIDTA.