Tag Archives: dna

The Surfside building collapse may require a redefinition of “real-time” regarding rapid DNA

(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)

I’ve previously noted that the definition of “real-time” can vary depending upon the use case. In the automated fingerprint identification systems world of the late 1990s, a definition of “real-time” in minutes was appropriate, but for the computer aided dispatch world, “real-time” was (and is) measured in seconds.

“Hi, SCC folks, welcome to Printrak. You’re joining a company that sells REAL TIME AFIS that delivers results within one minute! Aren’t you impressed?”

“Hello, new corporate overlords. We provide computer aided dispatch systems that send police, fire, and medical personnel to crime scenes and emergency sites as soon as possible. If our CAD systems took AN ENTIRE MINUTE to dispatch personnel, PEOPLE WOULD DIE. We use really powerful computers to get personnel dispatched in a second. Enjoy your real time AFIS…amateurs.”

I also mentioned a two-hour “real-time” use case, which is (conservatively) the time it takes a rapid DNA instrument to do its work.

From the FBI page on Rapid DNA, https://www.fbi.gov/services/laboratory/biometric-analysis/codis/rapid-dna

The rapid DNA vendors provide machines that can perform an automated DNA analysis in 90 minutes, a vast improvement over traditional DNA especially when existing backlogs are taken into account. And for the most part, 90 minutes is fine.

But the Surfside tragedy illustrates how 90 minutes may not be adequate.

There’s already been coverage of how rapid DNA can be, and is being, used to identify victims of the Surfside building collapse. NPR ran an article on this, and WFLA aired a news report.

To date I have not found a public source that lists how many rapid DNA machines are being used in the investigation, but let’s do a little math and see how many rapid DNA instruments could possibly be required.

Assume a conservative two hours is required to fully analyze each DNA sample and determine the possible identity of a deceased victim. Further assume that because of the importance of this case, the DNA instruments are being operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No going home at 5:00 pm in this case, which is receiving international attention.

Now let’s look at the numbers. As of 2:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time today, 20 deaths are confirmed, and 128 people are still unaccounted for.

What happens if there is a sudden horrific discovery of 100 deceased? How long would it take to identify all of them?

If 3 rapid DNA instruments are available, and each is processing 12 DNA samples in a 24 hour day, then it would take about three days to run all the samples through the DNA instruments.

Three very long days for the families of the potential victims who are waiting for news.

So the authorities may need to move to plan B.

The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office has been notified it might be asked to respond with the agency’s rapid DNA test machines to the deadly condominium collapse in Surfside, Sheriff Eric Flowers said….

“They put our folks on standby last weekend to respond if theirs got overwhelmed,” Flowers said. “At this point, they’ve not called for that, but our folks are ready and our machines are ready that if they call us we will respond to assist in DNA identification.”

Yes, in this case you can throw more machines at a problem to solve it, provided that you have the proper personnel to support them. Luckily, the rapid DNA instruments themselves do not need a forensic background to operate them, since they are designed to operate in an automated fashion. However, if rapid DNA analysis has an inconclusive result, then additional traditional DNA analysis will have to be performed which will require forensic expertise. (That, however, is outside of the scope of this post.)

By Zephyris – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15027555

So where do we stand after Surfside?

Previous rapid DNA identification efforts have just involved one person or less than a dozen people. But this case, in which potentially over 100 people may need to be identified, is truly pushing the limits of the technology.

(Come to think of it, it’s similar to how video analytic analysis was pushed to the limits by the Boston Marathon bombings. But I digress.)

And sadly, there have already been instances in which that many people, or more people, needed to be identified. Imagine, for example, the crash of a large airplane. Or worse still, the crash of two large airplanes into a skyscraper.

And now this 90 minute response time suddenly doesn’t seem so fast any more.

DNA reunions of families don’t just happen at the U.S.-Mexico border

Dr. Michael Bowers shared an article about DNA-ProKids.

From the article:

DNA-ProKids works with governments in Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Paraguay, Thailand, Brazil, India and Malaysia….

The programme uses our unique genetic footprint to trace thousands of missing children around the world. Some have been stolen from their parents and trafficked for sex or as slave labour, others sold in illegal adoptions, and some lost in hospital mix-ups….

The article includes several stories, including one of a woman who was drugged and her baby taken from her.

Guatemala’s government, which uses the DNA-ProKids programme, contacted the police who were able to find the baby using DNA within 48 hours. The thief, who was wearing a mask because of the pandemic, could not be identified.

Read more here, or visit the DNA-ProKids website.

Quantifying the costs of wrongful incarcerations

As many of you already know, the Innocence Project is dedicated to freeing people who have been wrongfully incarcerated. At times, the people are freed after examining or re-examining biometric evidence, such as fingerprint evidence or DNA evidence.

The latter evidence was relevant in the case of Uriah Courtney, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and rape based upon eyewitness testimony. At the time of Courtney’s arrest, DNA testing did not return any meaningful results. Eight years later, however, DNA technology had advanced to the point where the perpetrator could be identified—and, as the California Innocence Project noted, the perpetrator wasn’t Uriah Courtney.

I’ve read Innocence Project stories before, and the one that sticks most in my mind was the case of Archie Williams, who was released (based upon fingerprint evidence) after being imprisoned for a quarter century. At the time that Williams’ wrongful conviction was vacated, Vanessa Potkin, director of post-conviction litigation at the Innocence Project, stated, “There is no way to quantify the loss and pain he has endured.”

But that doesn’t mean that people haven’t tried to (somewhat) quantify the loss.

In the Uriah Courtney case, while it’s impossible to quantify the loss to Courtney himself, it is possible to quantify the loss to the state of California. Using data from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office 2018-19 annual costs per California inmate, the California Innocence Project calculated a “cost of wrongful incarceration” of $649,624.

One can quibble with the methodology—after all, the 2018-19 costs presumably overestimate the costs of incarcerating someone who was released from custody on May 9, 2013—but at least it illustrates that a cost of wrongful incarceration CAN be calculated. Add to that the costs of prosecuting the wrong person (including jury duty daily fees), and the costs can be quantified.

To a certain extent.