The city is opening a laboratory dedicated to analyzing and testing gun crime evidence as part of its efforts to curb violence and prosecute shooters, Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday. 

The Office of the City Medical Examiner is in the process of hiring two dozen forensic scientists to staff its new DNA Gun Crimes Unit, Adams and the city’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Jason Graham, said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. 

The “state of the art” crime lab's goal will be to cut the time it takes to test evidence in gun crime cases from 60 days to 30 days, Adams said. 

“It’s going to cut it in half, so that we can prosecute cases faster and get dangerous people off our streets,” he said.

While the medical examiner’s office already has a forensic biology lab focused on testing criminal evidence, its scientists work on a “variety of types of cases,” Graham said, including sexual assaults, homicides and robberies. 

The new unit, set to be the “first of its kind in the country,” will focus “exclusively” on gun crimes, allowing for faster turnaround times, he explained.

“Accelerated results will help the criminal justice system resolve cases as quickly as possible,” he said. “These proceedings can result in the exoneration of someone who is innocent, or the conviction of someone who is guilty.”

OCME has already pinpointed 10 of the 24 forensic scientists it plans to bring on board, with the remaining 14 spots set to be filled by the fall, Graham said. 

Leaving time for training, the unit should be up and running “within a year,” he added. 

The idea for the $2.5 million initiative dates back to Adams’ transition period, the mayor said, when his deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks, “discovered that many of the cases that were bottlenecked in the court system had to do with DNA testing.” 

“We immediately said, ‘Let’s allocate the money,’ because we cannot allow these cases to remain open, because some of the gun cases, the [district attorneys] won’t move forward without the DNA testing,” Adams said. “So we’re allowing these dangerous people to stay on the street, and so our goal was to say, ‘Let’s get this testing done.’” 

While advocates have long raised concerns about the accuracy of DNA testing, the legality of DNA gathering and its use in prosecuting crimes, the mayor said all testing would be done “in strict compliance with the laws that are put in place.” 

“We’re not going to violate any laws and any rules, but we want to use science as much as possible,” he said.

Adams’ announcement came amid his administration’s ongoing efforts to crack down on gun violence across the five boroughs — and came a day after a 20-year-old woman was fatally shot as she pushed her baby in a stroller on the Upper East Side. 

On Wednesday, the mayor said his administration had filed a lawsuit against five online retailers accused of illegally selling “ghost gun” parts. 

Adams on Thursday described the new crime lab as “another arm of law enforcement.” 

“This is how we strengthen public safety and how we fight gun violence,” he said. “We’re saying to those committed to gun crimes: science is coming for you, and we’re going to use this science to get you off our street.”