CRIME LAB STAFF — Only three criminalists constitute the staff of the Hilo Crime Lab. The three — Edward Oshiro, left, Kenneth Saito and Kathy Pung — conduct lab analyses not only for the Police Department, but for other county, state and federal agencies.
Crime Lab serves more than police
Three criminalists in the Hilo Crime Lab conduct forensic analyses not only for the entire Hawaii County Police Department, but also for other federal, state and county agencies.
The criminalists — Kenneth Saito, head of the Crime Lab, Edward Oshiro and Kathy Pung — take on analysis work from the Volcanoes National Park, the State Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) and the County Department of Liquor Control.
“We’ve got enough work to do,” Saito said.
Saito said the Crime Lab mostly analyzes substances to identify various chemical compounds, most often in cases where vice and other officers confiscate drugs from suspects.
“We also do a lot of latent work, mostly involving drugs and burglaries,” he said.
“We can bring out fingerprints that can easily be developed by chemical and dusting processes. The chemicals work with salt, oil and protein components of perspiration or material deposited on fingers and feet.”
Saito said the lab also does a limited amount of firearms analysis, primarily to restore a weapon’s serial number after a suspect tries to remove it by grinding the metal or defacing the number.
“Most serial numbers on firearms are stamped,” he said.
“Applying an acid solution will etch away the metal and bring out the serial number due to structural difference in the metal and stamped portion.”
Major analysis of firearms, such as ballistics to determine whether a round has been fired by a particular weapon, is farmed out because it is beyond the lab’s capabilities. Blood analysis, too, is farmed out, mostly to the Honolulu Police Department’s crime lab.
The Hilo lab also analyzes glass fragments to determine what kind of glass is related to a criminal investigation, and the criminalists also do limited analyses to determine the kinds of paint found at a crime scene.
The minimum qualification requirement for a criminalist is a college degree in science, preferably in chemistry, from an accredited college or university .
Purchases of new equipment within the past year have allowed the criminalists to cut the waiting period for crime lab tests in half.
Through a federal grant, the lab was able to purchase an auto-sampler system that greatly increases the speed of testing drug samples. It also was able to install three stereo compound and three stereo dissecting microscopes as well as digital photography equipment.