Maryland's newest $11.3 million State police barracks houses a crime lab & fingerprint analysis center in the same building.

Visitors to the new Maryland State Police barrack on Col. Henry K. Douglas Drive off Sharpsburg Pike have to be buzzed in to go through the second set of doors at the entrance.

At the duty officer station inside the door, thick bullet-proof glass protects a desk area and protective Kevlar lines the walls around the glass.

High security measures are in place throughout the $11.3 million facility, from a five-layer check point system that one must pass through to reach the building’s crime lab to surveillance cameras inside a drug evidence room that can be monitored at the Maryland State Police headquarters in Pikesville, MD.

“They really did a good job planning for the future,” said James Lehr, a Maryland State Police forensics science supervisor at the facility.

Analysis of finger prints over the years has been conducted in Pikesville, but Hagerstown now has its own fingerprint center, said Lt. Thomas Woodward, who oversees state police in the building.

Fingerprints in the lab can be analyzed through a chemical process, a powder process and a test that uses different light sources, Woodward said.

One benefit to Hagerstown having its own finger print center is that it will be closer to local courts as the region grows, state police officials said.

The local finger print operation, however, is not yet staffed and local finger print analysis is still conducted in Pikesville, Woodward said.

State police are working with the state Department of Budget and Management to address the staffing needs of the new facility, said Sgt. Marc Black, who works in the state police headquarters in Pikesville.

The Hagerstown fingerprint operation is not being staffed at the present because of difficult state budgetary times, Black said.
http://www.herald-mail.com/news/hm-high-security-the-design-plan-with-new-maryland-state-police-barracks-20121018,0,1411840.story