YSU rules out forming forensic science center

Residents signed petitions protesting the proposal.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown State University has decided not to develop a forensic science research and education center proposed for Ashtabula County.
John Yemma, dean of YSU's Bitonte College of Health and Human Services, said Tuesday the university isn't prepared to take the lead in opening and operating such a center.
The announcement came a day after residents of Richmond Township in Ashtabula County crowded into a Richmond Township Trustees' meeting to protest plans for the facility.
The university's criminal justice department has had preliminary discussions with local law enforcement agencies about the idea of such a center, possibly in Ashtabula County. Although YSU would support and participate in a forensics research and education center, Yemma said another institution or agency, or perhaps the state or federal government, would need to lead such an effort.
"We are not capable at this time of running an operation of this sort," Yemma said.
Ohio agency's proposal
Last fall, an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation approached YSU's Criminal Justice Department about the university's opening and operating a forensic science research and education center in Northeast Ohio.
Last month, local coroners and law enforcement agencies, as well as YSU biology, chemistry, anthropology and criminal justice faculty, met to have preliminary discussions about the concept.
Last week, the university said the development of this center is in the very early planning stages and no decisions had been made. The opening of a center like this is an extraordinarily complicated process that will require several review and approval processes both on an off campus before the university would move forward, YSU said.
Model center
The plan was to model the center after the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee, which opened in 1972. It would have had five primary focuses -- to study the decomposition rates of human tissue; to train canines for search and rescue, and recovery of cadavers; to train law enforcement officers in homicide investigations; to educate and train pathologists and coroners; and to provide education, research and training of YSU students in forensic science, biology, chemistry, anthropology and other related disciplines.
The criminal justice department was looking at possibly locating the facility on three acres of a 47-acre farm in Ashtabula County, YSU said.
Yemma assured residents that YSU will not open such a center in the county. "We will not move forward with any plans without the full support of the residents of the area," he said.
Richard Lemire, who said his home is just 1,000 feet from the site being considered, said areas residents, carrying petitions signed by 500 people, attended the trustees' meeting to protest the project.
He said residents had been told that bodies and/or body parts would be left exposed to the elements for extended periods of time, and the facility would be surrounded by a 10-foot high fence. That wouldn't keep animals from getting to those body parts, Lemire said.
Protests were going nowhere because the township has no zoning laws and couldn't prevent the development of a forensics center, he said.
gwin@vindy.com