The Duson Police Department is in the process of building a new evidence storage facility.

DUSON, La. (KLFY) -- The Duson Police Department is in the process of building a new evidence storage facility.

News 10 got a chance to see the new facility as well as the current one. Duson Police Chief Kip Judice said a new facility was much needed.

“There’s a necessity now with the delay in cases going to trial, backing us up five, six, eight, ten years, in some cases; our evidence is piling up and so the evidence room that we had here at the Duson Police Department has just been filled and we don't have any expansion room notes for our future cases,” Judice explained. 

He said the department was able to obtain some funds to build a brand new evidence room with double the square footage. This is all about preparation.

“Anticipating that the courts will not start moving any quicker moving forward, so we need to prepare ourselves for evidence and make sure that we have state-of-the-art security for our evidence moving forward,” said Judice. 

The police department has evidence back to 2001 that has not been authorized to be released or destroyed. Therefore, that means a case is either pending or maybe an appeal of some sort. The chief said that forces them to hold evidence for 22 years which of course it's going to pile up when you have evidence dating back that far back. 

“We’re currently working with our district attorney's office to see what evidence we can dispose of; cases that have been taken care of or dismissed and then now we can move forward with destroying that evidence and make it more room but until we do that, our capability and our storage space is limited,” said Judice.  

The new facility will allow the police department to hold the current evidence they have and more in the years to come if need be. The chief said it is important to have cases stored properly due to the integrity of the evidence which is crucial. 

“It proves the innocence or the guilt of a person," Judice explained. "So having the space to properly store evidence is extremely important as it keeps the integrity of the case alive and well so that we can get convictions,” he said. 

The police department is installing some inner walls for security purposes so that a person can't just cut through the metal part of the building. In addition, there will be some motion sensors in the building so that if anybody does make it in or something is in there, the police department will be alerted immediately. 

“We have police officers 24 hours a day here in the town. So we would be able to respond here and find out what's going on," said Judice. "We would be alarmed and then we've got state-of-the-art locking mechanisms that are now as foolproof as possible with regards to picking locks or any of that. So we went through all of the extraordinary steps that we would for an evidence storage facility because of the necessity there, again, to keep the integrity of that evidence where no one has been accessible or done something to our evidence to change the outcome when we go to court.” 

The chief hopes to use the new evidence room by March 1st. 

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