Crime Lab

Kansas City Police Crime Laboratory
2645 Brooklyn, Kansas City, MO 64127
(816) 349-3200
Hours of Operation: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday-Friday
An ISO/IEC 17025:2017 ANAB Accredited Testing Laboratory

The Kansas City Police Crime Laboratory currently services all of Kansas City, MO, as well as many surrounding communities in Missouri. It is a full-service laboratory offering forensic analysis and expert testimony in chemistry, crime scene processing, DNA analysis, digital evidence, firearms, fingerprint ID, latent prints and trace analysis.

The Laboratory Mission

The Kansas City Police Crime Laboratory, an adjunct to the Kansas City Missouri Police Department (KCPD), acknowledges as its mission the provision of expert and professional recovery and examination of evidentiary materials to aid in the investigation of criminal offenses. State-of-the-art instrumentation and/or scientific techniques are utilized in the forensic disciplines of chemistry, crime scene processing, firearms examinations, fingerprint recovery preservation and comparison, photography, digital and multimedia evidence, trace evidence examination and DNA profiling. Expert testimony is provided in all disciplines to aid in the prosecution and defense of criminal defendants. Training of law enforcement and criminal justice personnel is also recognized as an important function in the pursuit of this mission.

Brief History 

The Kansas City Police Crime Laboratory history extends back to the creation of the Region 1 (Northwest Missouri) Regional Criminalistics Laboratory (RCL) in 1972. This laboratory was part of the Regional Center for Criminal Justice which was primarily established to serve a five-county region of Jackson, Clay, Platte, Cass, and Buchanan counties. Later, due to boundary changes, Ray County replaced Buchanan in the regional assignment.

The RCL was tasked to be a professionally staffed forensic laboratory consisting of skilled employees and equipped with the latest scientific tools. The staff incorporated members of the KCPD Crime Laboratory originally formed in 1938. In addition to service to its regional area, the laboratory provided support to other law enforcement entities including evidence examination, testimony, and crime scene response.

In the late 1970s, the laboratory was administratively absorbed as an element of the Kansas City Missouri Police Department. The RCL maintained its role as a regional resource and continues to provide services to a number of law enforcement agencies using the laboratory as their primary resource, or as an ancillary resource, for forensic services. The lab was the first metropolitan regional crime laboratory to be accredited in 1985.

The laboratory has grown in size and complexity over the years and has graduated from a unit within the KCPD to its own division. The staff of the laboratory now numbers in excess of 70 persons. The Kansas City Police Crime Laboratory is an accredited laboratory and participates as a member of the Missouri State crime lab system.

Accreditation