Pilot program could give IC Sheriff’s Office edge to solving crimes

It's called Rapid DNA. A new pilot program that the Imperial County Sheriff's office hopes to implement in their investigations. 

Lt. Jimmy Duran, of the Imperial County Sheriff's Office said, "If we find a weapon involved in a homicide and we're able to retrieve DNA from that and then we have a suspect and we're able to match  that to the suspect, I think the community should feel safer."

What is usually a 6 months to a year process will now only take hours. 

"It processes a sample, a biological sample and gets a DNA profile in 93 minutes."

But due to the cost of the technology, the sheriff's office will only use it for high profile crimes. 

"It's going to be kinda limited to homicide, rapes, robberies, home invasion. And the identification of human remains."

In the end, investigators hope to be more thorough and take on more cases. 

Duran added, "We are being proactive as far as acquiring this new technology. Which we know what we believe is going to be implemented statewide and nationwide eventually."

The Rapid DNA technology will go online in three weeks.