February 22, 2018
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Houston Forensic Science Center will have a partial shutdown of services from
February 28 to March 6 as it moves its databases to a new, independent computer
network.
HFSC is required under longstanding contractual agreements with the City of Houston
and the Houston Police Department to move to an independent network by the end of
March.
The transition is complex and will take several days, in part to allow HFSC to copy its
large database from one network to the other.
“We understand the inconvenience this partial shutdown causes to stakeholders and
the community, but in the long-run HFSC will have a faster network that better meets
the needs of the crime lab and the community,” said Dr. Peter Stout, HFSC’s CEO and
president.
HFSC will not issue reports in five disciplines during the outage: firearms, toxicology,
crime scene, audio/video and forensic biology/DNA. Requests can be made during the
partial shutdown. Callout reports for crime scene, audio/video and firearms will also be
completed during this time.
However, HFSC will only accept direct submissions of evidence and requests for cases
that are related to an officer-involved shooting.
HFSC will return to normal operations on March 5.
HFSC is a local government corporation that provides forensic services to the City of
Houston and other local agencies. HFSC is overseen by a Board of Directors appointed
by the Mayor of Houston and confirmed by the Houston City Council. Its management
structure is designed to be responsive to a 2009 recommendation by the National
Academy of Sciences that called for crime laboratories to be independent of law
enforcement and prosecutorial branches of government.
HFSC operates in seven forensic disciplines.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Ramit Plushnick-Masti
Director of Communications/PIO
media@houstonforensicscience.org
713-929-6768 (office)
713-703-4898 (cell)
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