IAPE Evidence Blog

The Her­ald Sun, heraldsun.com.au
BYLINE: Mark But­tler, Her­ald Sun
Link to Article

Mel­bourne, Australia

ALMOST 200 shot­guns, semi-automatics and revolvers held by Vic­to­ria Police can’t be accounted for, an embar­rass­ing audit has revealed.

The she­moz­zle has been exposed in a stock­take of thou­sands of guns held by police over the past 20 years.

Among the 186 guns con­firmed as miss­ing are police firearms and oth­ers used for foren­sic com­par­i­son and training.

Police admit many could have been lost, though some could have been destroyed with­out doc­u­men­ta­tion and list­ings for oth­ers could have been dupli­cated. The audit, which began last year, fol­lows two decades of sloppy records.

A police spokesman said not all of the weapons were lost, and the force expected most cases related to “poor his­tor­i­cal record keep­ing and track­ing of weapons”. Some of the guns iden­ti­fied may no longer exist.

“For exam­ple, firearms might have been destroyed, but not removed from our data­bases. Or dupli­cate entries have been made on data­bases. Or if the ser­ial num­ber on a weapon was entered incor­rectly, then we would be look­ing for a ser­ial num­ber on a firearm that does not exist,” he said.

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The force took secu­rity “extremely seri­ously”. “Our record keep­ing and track­ing of total firearms in the state, how­ever, has not been suf­fi­cient over the past 20 years, and we are now under­tak­ing exten­sive work to rem­edy the sit­u­a­tion,” he said.

Until last year there had been no attempt to rec­on­cile four sep­a­rate firearms databases.

The audit ini­tially found 500 gun records could not be rec­on­ciled. Three of 10,292 oper­a­tional guns are among those missing.

But the spokesman said he expected they’d be recov­ered soon.

But Firearms Traders Asso­ci­a­tion sec­re­tary Graeme Forbes said this was unlikely.

“If they’ve been look­ing for months, they’re not going to find them,” he said.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Ten­nessean (Nashville, Ten­nessee), MAIN NEWS
BYLINE: By, Chris Echegaray

David­son County,TN

For­mer David­son County and state med­ical exam­iner Bruce Levy worked out a deal Thurs­day on Mis­sis­sippi charges of pos­sess­ing more than 30 grams of marijuana.

Levy, 50, was placed on pre­trial diver­sion, with the pos­si­bil­ity that the charges will be dis­missed and the record expunged if he stays out of trou­ble for three years, said his Nashville attor­ney, David Ray­bin. He’ll be given ran­dom drug tests and must com­ply with stan­dard court pro­ba­tion rules.

Levy, who con­tracted to do autop­sies in Mis­sis­sippi, was arrested in March after a drug dog detected mar­i­juana in a pack­age bound for his Ridge­land, Miss., hotel by courier ser­vice. A search of the hotel room turned up more marijuana.

After his arrest, the Ten­nessee Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion looked into whether Levy had taken mar­i­juana from the state evi­dence room or from bod­ies brought in for autop­sies. The results were turned over to the David­son County dis­trict attor­ney, TBI spokes­woman Kristin Helm said.

The D.A.‘s office also researched whether Levy’s Mis­sis­sippi arrest com­pro­mised any crim­i­nal cases he tes­ti­fied in here.

Spokes­woman Susan Niland said no cases have been found to be affected.

Levy remains licensed

The TBI report is under review by the dis­trict attorney’s office, Niland said.

Levy had been David­son County and Tennessee’s chief med­ical exam­iner since 1998, pres­i­dent and CEO of Foren­sic Med­ical in Nashville and owned Global Foren­sics in Mississippi.

Levy still holds his med­ical license in Ten­nessee. The board that han­dles dis­ci­pli­nary action against doc­tors has not issued a notice of charges, state Health Depart­ment spokes­woman Andrea Turner said.

The Health Depart­ment can’t com­ment on whether there is an inves­ti­ga­tion pend­ing if no dis­ci­pli­nary notice has been issued.

Asked if Levy will try to con­tract again as a med­ical exam­iner in Ten­nessee, Ray­bin declined to comment.

Levy had been free on $25,000 bond and could have faced 20 years in prison if convicted.

Pre­trial diver­sions are com­mon with first-time offend­ers, said Jon Kala­har, spokesman for the Mis­sis­sippi Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safety.

Con­tact Chris Echegaray at 615 – 664-2144 or cechegaray@tennessean.com

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

KCRA-TV, kcra.com, Hearst Sta­tions Inc.
Link to Arti­cle
One Video

Sacra­mento, CA

Worker Dropped Evi­dence Enve­lope, Author­i­ties Say

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A Sacra­mento police prop­erty clerk was wounded by bul­let shrap­nel Thurs­day morn­ing when she acci­den­tally dropped an evi­dence enve­lope, author­i­ties said.

The bul­let went off at about 9:45 a.m. at the police prop­erty man­age­ment build­ing on Sequoia Pacific Boule­vard, Sgt. Norm Leong said.

Shrap­nel hit the clerk, a 10-year vet­eran, in the right leg.

She was taken to UC Davis Med­ical Cen­ter where she was treated and released before 1 p.m., Leong said.

The bul­let wasn’t in a weapon or clip, offi­cials said. They described the acci­dent as extremely rare.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org