ICYMI: Here's How DNA Tests Are Leading to Arrests: An Example from Norwalk

DNA testing in by a state forensics laboratory is now giving police links between suspects and crimes that detectives can use to make arrests.

It takes months to get results back from the lab, but police in New Canaan and Darien have said they’ve identified burglars when the Connecticut Forensics Laboratory has matched traces of DNA at the crime scene with DNA samples taken from people in the state’s crime database or from suspects.

Norwalk police on Wednesday morning announced the arrest of a 24-year-old man who’s DNA was found on a gun. Police gave these accounts (accusations not proven in court) of two cases they have against him:

On July 10, 2014, members of the police Special Services Street Team were on parole near the Colonial Village housing complex off of West Cedar Street when they saw Daeshawn Richardson walking near the entrance.

Richardson saw them, too, and immediately bent down behind a parked vehicle. Officers approached, and he ran off through Colonial Village. One officer, looking where Richardson had stopped, saw a shiny object, which turned out to be a loaded semi-automatic pistol.

Another officer chased Richardson through the housing complex, but lost sight of him.

Officer Brian Barrett conducted an investigation on the firearm and applied for a search warrant. Richardson’s DNA was compared to the DNA recovered from the firearm, and the state lab found a match. Police obtained an arrest warrant for Richardson and on Tuesday members of the police Special Services Division arrested him.

Richardson was charged with possession of a pistol without a permit and held on $100,000 bond.

He was also arrested on a warrant for a separate case: On Jan. 10, 2014, Special Services Division officers stopped his vehicle on Cedar Crest Place to ask him about a narcotics investigation. He fled on foot. Richardson was charged with interfering with an officer and held on another bond, this one for $50,000.

The police announcement did not say whether or not he was released after paying those bonds. If he didn’t pay both by Wednesday morning, he would have appeared Wednesday in state Superior Court in Norwalk.

In December, the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association announced that the forensics laboratory in Connecticut had reduced the waiting time for DNA test results from two years to 60 days, according to this Fox CT report.