Southern Minnesota To Be Better Served With New Facility

Nobody wants crime to happen near where they live, but when it does happen, they want it solved quickly. For those who live in the Southernmost region of Minnesota that has been made trickier because of the geographic challenges the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has to get to the scene. 

The BCA is based in St. Paul and sometimes have to travel hundreds of miles before they can begin their investigation. But soon, that won’t be the case. A regional office of the BCA is being built. 

The new location will be housed in Mankato and will help better serve this region with a 56,000 square foot facility that will be the home to 50 investigators, a crime scene response team, forensic scientists and support staff. 

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I mentioned the forensic scientists that will work here, they will have a new 6,000 square foot forensic and digital crime lab to process what is expected to be 6,000 cases per year. That could be as many as 12,000 different pieces of evidence.  

Having this new lab will allow evidence to be processed faster for law enforcement in the Southern Region, with the goal of solving cases faster. 

This new BCA facility will be an asset for an area including Alexandria, St. Cloud, Willmar, Marshall, Mankato and Rochester, and of course the neighboring towns to those locations.  

This new facility will also create some job opportunities, look for the BCA at Career and Job Fairs in the area for more details.