Walz breaks ground on new $67 million regional BCA headquarters and crime lab in Mankato
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
Gov. Tim Walz joined other state and local officials in Mankato Monday to break ground on a new regional headquarters and crime lab for the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
The facility will be located near the Blue Earth County Justice Center, and it will serve much of southern Minnesota, improving forensic testing and evidence analysis response times. It will also serve as a regional training hub for the state and local police departments. It’s expected to be operational by early 2027.
“This is all part of making sure we’re able to process those crime scenes, get the evidence necessary, make sure it goes to the courts, and we’re able to make sure that safety is the top priority,” Walz said. “So, [I'm] just incredibly grateful that this entire facility, with the new public safety building, with the investments that Mankato has made, is just really going to make a difference.”
The $67 million crime lab will support law enforcement across southern Minnesota and will employ about 50 forensic scientists and criminal investigators. The new facility will eliminate the need to send critical evidence to the state’s crime lab in the Twin Cities, reducing the chances that evidence is lost, damaged or tampered with.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
The Mankato regional facility will be able to process about 6,000 cases a year and about 12,000 pieces of evidence. It will allow police and investigators in southern Minnesota to more quickly test and analyze evidence while relieving the workload for the forensic scientists and technicians in St. Paul’s crime lab.
Drew Evans, superintendent of the BCA, pointed to the tragic double homicide this weekend in the small Brown County town of Hanska, about 30 miles west of Mankato, as a prime example of how investigations will be able to proceed much more quickly.
“Just this weekend, we're in Brown County, in a terrible situation there,” Evans said. “This [regional headquarters] means [that] the crime scene team comes out of Mankato, not out of the Twin Cities, meaning they're on scene [in] less time.”
"Having a hub like this with the regional office is going to make [processing evidence] more possible, more quickly,” Evans added. “We'll improve forensic testing and turn-around times, making our scientists much closer to the courtrooms that they serve each and every day as they testify. This represents a step forward, not just for the BCA but this facility as a regional asset to all of southern Minnesota."
State Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson said funding for the new crime lab was approved with bipartisan support in the Minnesota Legislature. He said the investments from the state will make communities safer.
“BCA professionals are dedicated to public service, to criminal justice and to the communities and the people of Minnesota,” Jacobson said. “This new regional office is a direct reflection of their commitment to excellence and the trust the people of Minnesota place in them.”
The new regional BCA lab in Mankato will serve 43 southern Minnesota counties, while the St. Paul lab will handle cases from the counties in the Twin Cities metro area. The BCA’s crime lab in Bemidji serves counties in northern Minnesota.
Having the regional lab will also reduce the need for investigators to travel to the Twin Cities metro, which sometimes takes staff a whole day to do.
Blue Earth County Sheriff Jeff Wersal says he’s had to make numerous trips up to the Twin Cities for lab reports, which delays investigations, adding to the trauma for crime victims.
“The wait times aren’t just on law enforcement, it’s on the victims of crime and the people that want the cases settled,” Wersal said. “And, sometimes, we had to wait ‘til the BCA lab got what we needed, and to have that right — literally, right in our backyard is going to be great. Not only for us, but for the chiefs and sheriffs around the state that no longer have to make that trip again to St. Paul. They can come here.”
