After years of using a hand-me-down vehicle, the Eau Claire Police Department is spending $104,000 to get hi-tech. It's the first time the crime scene unit will be able to process evidence right at the scene.

The crime scene unit should have it's new truck by the end of this summer. It's a vehicle the CSU coordinator says took years of planning and budgeting to get. And one he says can't get here soon enough.

"We affectionately call it the bread truck," Lt. Gerald Staniszewski says with a laugh.

But the 1990 bread truck is more accustomed to crime scenes than bakeries.

"There's so much stuff in there with all the scientific advancements and all the equipment that we’ve obtained over the last six years that it's really an unsafe environment," Lt. Staniszewski says.

Staniszewski is the Crime Scene Unit coordinator. He says one tap of the breaks can send the equipment flying.

On Friday, the truck was full of a half-dozen cases, some filled with tens of thousands dollars of equipment. But, Lt. Staniszewski says if the unit needs to get to a murder investigation, at least five more cases are needed. That leaves no room for officers who have to follow in four or five squad cars.

But, in a couple months, there’ll be a new truck parked in the Police Department garage; one with plenty of space for equipment and officers.

"We're very excited. This is something we've needed for a while," Detective Ryan Lambesder tells us as he dusts for fingerprints in the department crime lab. That's something he'll soon be able to do inside the new truck.

"We'll be able to process evidence at the scene,” says Lt. Staniszewski. “If there’s something that we need quick results on or maybe need to test to see if a substance might be human blood versus animal blood, those are things we need to know right away. They might steer our investigations one way or the other. Right now, we have to remove those items, bring them down to the police department, use extra personnel, use our lab, and get back. So there’s sometimes an hour or two hour lag time.”

Lt. Staniszewski says those hours can stretch into months at the state crime lab.

“If we have the ability to process evidence in a few weeks versus not making this expense or investing this money into this vehicle, does that victim want to wait six months moths to a year to come to a resolution? It's actually a bigger picture than just having the vehicle replacement," Lt. Staniszewski says.

But, he says no one at the department will be too sad to see their bread truck retired.

"We’ve had it for a while, It's served its purpose, but it's time to go," Detective Lambesder says with a grin.

Asked if he was sad to see it go, Lt. Staniszewski laughed and said “no.” Then laughed some more.

Lt. Staniszewski says the new CSU vehicle is essentially four vehicles in one. He says it will also be used for crisis negotiations, crash investigations and as a command post.