And the fallout continues

I’ve lost track how long Houston’s Police Laboratory has been in trouble.  Certainly since my grad school days, when we students were silently warned to ignore any job ads originating from that lab, no matter how enticing they might look. And unfortunately, the problems aren’t over yet by a long shot:

A chemist accused of fabricating forensic test results resigned Monday

from his position as a drug analyst in the troubled Houston Police

Department crime laboratory, Chief Harold Hurtt said.

Vipul H. Patel’s resignation from the lab’s controlled

substances division came in the wake of a unanimous resolution Monday

morning by City Council’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee

calling for his firing. Council members offered harsh criticism for his

actions and the fact that he had remained employed at the lab.

“He shouldn’t even be there sharpening pencils,” Councilwoman Ada Edwards said.

Patel could not be reached for comment Monday.

Last month, a special investigator hired by the city of Houston to

probe the crime lab scandal issued a scathing report accusing Patel and

James E. Price, a former analyst from the lab’s controlled substances

division, of “drylabbing.”

The term refers to the fabrication of results without actually

testing the evidence. The report accused the analysts of falsifying two

reports each between 1998 and 2000. Lab supervisors discovered all four

instances before the evidence could be used in criminal trials, the

report noted.

For more background into how badly things have declined at HPD, the Chronicle’s special report sums things up rather well.