Rick Workman, criminalistics administrator for the Henderson Police Department, speaks of the department's need for a new, modern forensic lab while touring the current one at 223 Lead St. Photo by Craig L. Moran.

Compared with the state-of-the-art sleekness of television's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," the Henderson Police Department crime lab looks like it's from the stone age. Instead of sleek high-tech equipment, the small, cramped room contains magnifying glasses, stationary cameras and small bottles of chemicals for fingerprinting.

But if Rick Workman, the criminalistics administrator for Henderson, has his way, his police department will soon have a forensic lab that rivals the one on television. Workman is leading the effort to raise $37 million for a new crime lab in Henderson. He envisions a stand-alone building in Henderson where investigators would be capable of analyzing everything from gunshot residue to DNA.

"About 95 percent of potential DNA evidence is not analyzed because we have no lab that analyzes DNA and no one has the capability to take it," Workman said.

The lab would be built with private money but the city of Henderson would operate it, he said.

A former crime scene analyst with the Metropolitan Police Department who has also served as a technical advisor to "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," Workman said he is pushing for the crime lab on his own time and isn't acting on behalf of the Henderson Police Department.

"I have literally spent every night and every weekend to get to the point where we are now," he said.

Workman's effort to raise the $37 million is still in its infancy. He just recently started a Web site, www.hendersoncrimelab.com, that provides details about the project, but he hasn't roped in any big donors.

"We are going to be contacting a lot of organizations in town to ask them to help the entire community," he said. "We want to make this a community project."

If all goes according to plan, the lab could be completed by summer of 2009, according to the Web site. In addition to examining evidence for law enforcement officers, the lab could serve as a training and research facility, Workman said.

The need for a new facility in Henderson and in Southern Nevada is huge, law enforcement officials said. The Metropolitan Police Department's crime lab already does forensic work for 50 local, regional and federal agencies, said Capt. Tom Hawkins, head of the criminalistics bureau at the Las Vegas police. The criminalistics bureau is responsible for crime scene investigations, analyzing evidence and storing it.

The Las Vegas police department is the only law enforcement agency with the capability to do DNA analysis in Southern Nevada and in April had a backlog of 291 cases to analyze, Hawkins said. In March, the backlog was 323 cases, he said.

"If someone else can get a forensic lab going, we'd be all for it," he said. "As it stands for law enforcement, we're it."

Henderson police have a backlog of about 4,000 DNA tests, Workman said. Henderson already sends most of its priority DNA cases to a lab in San Antonio, Texas, because Las Vegas police often are too busy, he said, adding that if the Henderson Police had a priority or serious case the Las Vegas police probably would make the time to do it.

But many times, the DNA samples are sent out of state and the police could wait four to six weeks for results, he said. That means that if the police get a sample of a rapist's DNA from a victim, it could take more than a month before the department could get the results back to check against national offender databases and possibly identify a suspect.

If the Henderson Police department had a lab with DNA capability, it could complete the test in a day, Workman said.

"One of the reasons we took so long with doing (publicizing) this project is because the public would be aware of some our limitations, but this is a very important resource," Workman said.

The need for the lab will only continue to grow because Henderson, which already has an estimated population of a quarter-million people, continues to be one of the nation's fastest-growing cities. It's population grew 4.8 percent from 2004 to 2005, according to the city.

But the lab wouldn't be good news just for Henderson. The lab, once it is running, could do forensic work for other law enforcement agencies in Southern Nevada including North Las Vegas, another police department in the valley that sends most of it's forensic work to Las Vegas police, Workman said.

"We'll do everything we can to help out other law enforcement agencies to do their forensics as well. We're all on the same side," he said. "One lab for the entire county is not enough."

Henderson Police Chief Richard Perkins said the department has been in talks with Henderson city officials about funding the facility, but he said the need for more police officers has overshadowed the new crime lab.

"The short answer is yes, we need both (the lab and more officers), but we need people to show up on people's door when they call 911 more," Perkins said.

Perkins said he thought Workman was the best person for the job of raising private money for the lab, a first such venture for the department.

Mayor Jim Gibson, in an e-mailed statement, said the lab would be "a tremendous benefit for law enforcement in this region" and is "certainly something worthy of support."

Asked why the city hasn't funded it already, Bud Cranor, spokesman for the mayor, said that Workman hasn't approached the city for contributions, but even if he did ,Henderson doesn't have the cash to put into the lab.

"The thought is that it is a great idea, but city money is tight," he said.

Workman said he hasn't asked the police department or the city for funds because he doesn't want taxpayers to foot the bill.

Workman realized that it is an uphill battle to raise $37 million for the potential lab, but he said he is determined to get the funds.

"It's something that needs to be done," he said.

Review-Journal reporter Lawrence Mower contributed to this story.