The future of law enforcement isn't the stereotypical, beefy police officer patrolling the streets, billy club in hand.

While such community policing will always be a facet of law enforcement, the real future involves a keen eye -- and latex gloves.

The ability to collect and analyze evidence to discover a culprit's genetic fingerprint supplements good old-fashioned shoe leather and can result in more solid prosecutions.

It was science, for example, that convicted Charles McCormick earlier this year.

Prosecutors presented a large amount of circumstantial evidence that pointed to Charles McCormick as the man who murdered his estranged wife in her Bluffton home on New Year's Day 2006. But it was a microscopic clump of his cells under Ellen McCormick's fingernails that sealed the case and Charles McCormick's fate.

"Evidence builds cases," said Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner. "It is the major part of a case. It supports allegations. It supports eyewitness accounts. It supports everything."

The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office is on pace to create its own DNA lab by the fall, becoming just the second local law enforcement agency in the state with the ability to analyze DNA.

The science will take place in a roughly 2,000 square-foot, prefabricated building at Beaufort-Jasper Sewer & Water in Okatie and should dramatically decrease the waiting period for processing such evidence. That waiting period was the result of forensic evidence from across the state being analyzed in one place: the State Law Enforcement Division lab in Columbia.

The state lab must prioritize which evidence is processed based on the severity of the crime. That delays some property crimes from being analyzed for up to three years, local authorities say. Evidence from violent crimes such as rape and murder can take anywhere from a few days to a few months.

Additionally, during trials, prosecutors must bring in the forensic analyst from Columbia who worked the case. That requires a long road trip and a great deal of coordination.

All of that taken together can mean postponed trials.

WIDENING THE NET

In a county where a jail designed to hold 250 inmates houses an average of 350, time is of the essence, authorities said.

"We're going to do everything in Beaufort County in-house in our lab with a 30-day turnaround," Tanner promised.

In 2002, the sheriff's office created a chemistry lab to analyze seized drugs. The same procedure could take months at SLED and put anumber of narcotics cases in a holding pattern.

The local drug lab -- funded by a regional grant -- serves agencies in Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, Jasper and Allendale counties at no cost.

It has results back within a month, said chemist Renita Berry.

Eventually, Tanner hopes to merge and expand the two labs into new disciplines, such as toxicology and arson.

Total startup and first-year costs of the DNA lab alone are about $750,000. It's expected to cost about $350,000 a year to operate.

Three new employees have been hired --one for the drug lab and two experienced DNA analysts.

"As far as our lab here goes, they will bring in the same technology that's available at SLED and the FBI," said Capt. Bob Bromage, a sheriff's investigator. "It'll have the same sensitivity, the same accuracy."

The new DNA lab will be available to all Beaufort County police agencies free-of-charge. It will charge outlying counties. Tanner hopes to secure grant money to make the service free to all agencies in the 14th Judicial Circuit.

It probably will take the lab up to a year to be accredited by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, a requirement for DNA profiles to be uploaded to an important national database.

Earlier this month, the Virginia Department of Forensic Science uploaded the DNA profile of an 18-year-old man accused of breaking into a home and a police officer's cruiser late last year.

It matched blood collected from a burglary scene on Hilton Head Island last summer and allowed authorities to file those charges.

Each state has different laws pertaining to which convicts are tested automatically.

In South Carolina, those convicted of felonies, offenses carrying more than five years of prison time or peeping now are required to surrender their DNA for the database prior to their release.

'SCIENCE IS OBJECTIVE'

As much as science helps find suspects and convict offenders, it plays an equally important role in exonerating them.

Four suspects accused of breaking into a Bluffton pizzeria in February also were suspected of hitting a Latino store and stealing $30,000 worth of merchandise on the same night.

Detectives swabbed their mouths for cells. Their DNA then was compared with evidence at the Latino store scene. It proved they weren't involved.

"Science doesn't lie," said 14th Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone. "Science is objective. Science is evidence that tells the jury what they need to know, and it's very difficult to cross-examine.

"For the criminal justice system to work and to keep the community safe, it has to be two things: efficient and effective," he said. "What (Tanner's) doing -- combining traditional law enforcement with cutting-edge technology -- does nothing but increase our effectiveness in the courtroom."

The expected quickness of the new lab also might help with cold cases, especially those with a large array of suspects, said Capt. Bromage, who revisits those cases.

"The faster you can eliminate them (suspects), the less time you waste," he said.

Richland County opened its own DNA analysis lab in 2004 as part of a crime lab that also performs drug and ballistics tests.

"It's probably the single most important thing we've done in the past 50 years," Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told the Beaufort Gazette in April 2007. "We're solving cases we would've never been able to solve."

Lott said his office was able to use DNA to connect several sexual assaults initially thought to be unrelated. The arrest probably prevented other victims from being assaulted, the sheriff said.

The new Beaufort County lab also will be used for less serious crimes.

"The fact is, we're going to collect more potential evidence at crime scenes than we ever have," Tanner said. "Collecting a cigarette butt or a Coca-Cola can or a beer can, historically, that wasn't done on a trespassing, littering or shoplifting case."

The DNA analysts -- one of whom has a background in crime scene processing -- will train the sheriff's 200-plus officers and other areapolice departments on what to look for at a crime scene and how to collect it.

Once the lab opens, the demand for locally-processed DNA profiles will be evident, said Tim French, one of the recently hired analysts.

"They'll be a line of officers outside the door," he said.

And, presumably, two very busy scientists inside.

-- By Daniel Brownstein