/ HPD Crime Lab

For the last month, 11 News has uncovered serious problems inside Houston's new crime lab. Problems that could blow investigations and put innocent people behind bars.      

So, we took the evidence to one of the nation’s leading forensic scientists and we also showed it to Houston Mayor Bill White.

A previous scandal forced the HPD to shut down, reorganize and then reopen its crime lab. At the time, officials called it a new beginning.

"If you don't learn from the past. If you don't learn from your mistakes you are doomed to repeat them,” Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said when the crime lab opened its doors once again in 2005.

"I see this slide back toward silence,” is what an analyst, who is on the job in the lab now, had to say. "Abuse of power, people being threatened, people afraid to stand up. Watching the morale dip to levels lower than ever before. Even before the last time."

The last time there was such problems at the lab, thousands of cases came into question  due to faulty DNA and serology work.

Hundreds of cases are still being reviewed and the wrongly convicted released.

As a result, the lab closed.

Those troubles were supposed to be history when the lab's DNA section reopened two years ago.

11 News has found new evidence of trouble in the new lab.

In a timeline produced by crime lab management and distributed to staff --obtained by 11 News from multiple sources -- "issues" with DNA cases are documented.

These are problems with current cases.  In all, 14 times since the lab reopened.

Reports of evidence contamination, the loss of the chain of custody and even a sample switch.

"The fact that there are so many of these problems raises real concerns about the reliability of the evidence coming out of the crime lab once again,” said Dr. Bill Thompson, a nationally renowned DNA expert.

His work was pivotal five years ago in exposing the evidence of errors at the crime lab.

He says the huge increase in problems -- seven of the issues in a six-week period and four in seven days back in August -- is trouble.

“You would want to shut down the lab and review the procedures,” Thompson said. “That is a pretty bad week.”

Chief Hurtt and HPD still decline to comment.

So we went to the boss. Mayor White says he is aware of the issues and trusts the department.

"They generated the report. They got on top of it,” White contends. “The DNA lab was far better off than it was in the past."

City Council member Carol Alvarado is not so sure.

"You would not expect this to happen again and again and again and again. In such a short time period,” she said.

Her solution?

Shut it down again and solve the problems.

"We can't just continue to throw more money and more money to clean it up. It has to stop somewhere,” Alvarado.