Feb. 17—The office of Gov. Kay Ivey announced earlier this week that it would be awarding a $150,000 grant to Jacksonville State University's Center for Applied Forensics (CFAF) as part of a larger effort to fund the state's law enforcement and forensics training.

However, much more than just the law enforcement agencies in the area will reap the benefits of the "Byrne Justice Assistance Grant," or Byrne JAG.

Jax State's CFAF partnered with the Alabama Department of Economics and Community Affairs (ADECA) several years ago to come up with an idea that would have an effect statewide.

JSU Senior Forensic Scientist Dr. Mark Hopwood said he worked with the ADECA to provide tuition-free professional training to law enforcement across the state, specifically on crime scene investigation, and to provide rural Alabama agencies with much-needed forensic collection kits.

When the operation began a little over five years ago, the CFAF began with 50 kits and offered a small amount of training with the funding they were allotted at the time. The Byrne JAG funding will not only provide more than150 new kits to law enforcement agencies across the state, but $50,000 of the funds will be allocated to providing training to those agencies.

Hopwood recalled a case in which a Calhoun County schoolteacher, Kevin Thompson, was abducted and placed into the back of his car for several hours before he was beaten and murdered. In respect to that case, Hopwood said law enforcement tested the inside of the trunk and found a "smudgy hand print," but didn't find a fingerprint.

So instead of testing the print, techs were able to lift DNA from the hand print due to something called "low concentration DNA," Hopwood said. It was his goal to not only train law enforcement on how to properly collect that type of evidence, but give professionals the proper tools to collect it free of charge.

Each kit includes sterile fingerprinting supplies, including packets of single-use sterile fingerprinting powder, disposable brushes, and a pack of "hinge lifters" that replaced a roll of tape. Hopwood said the goal was to eliminate as much risk of contamination as possible.

The kits also include disposable evidence markers, gloves, evidence capture swabs, and more.

"What you find out, if you buy something from some of the forensic vendors and it will be stuff that they haven't sold in 20 years and they're just getting rid of it, putting it in a kit. So I said, 'let's build kits with the stuff we know works and that they'll use,'" Hopwood said.

For the training, Hopwood said the CFAF outsources external trainers who charge a flat rate, and then offer those courses to the law enforcement agencies free of charge. Rather than each agency spending $1,000 per officer to send them to a training course for a week, the CFAF uses the funding from grants such as this one to pay those fees at a flat rate.

"Last year, we did 54 training sessions between here and the rest of the state," Hopwood said.

Those training sessions were a variety of courses such as "Fingerprint Evidence Processing, Collection and Photography; Bloodstain Pattern Analysis; Alternate Light Source Workshops; and Metal Detector Operation," stated a release from the National Criminal Justice Association.

"Between 2015 and 2021, CFAF held 29 classes serving 589 officers and distributed 531 Crime Scene Kits," the release continued.

Hopwood himself has traveled all over the state delivering the kits and explaining how to properly use the items inside. He said he's delivered training everywhere from Florence to Gulf Shores.

In addition to the kits and training, Hopwood said as long as the supplies hold, the agencies can call the CFAF if they need any of the supplies replenished.

Staff Writer Ashley Morrison: 256-236-1551. On Twitter: @AshMorrison1105.