IAPE Evidence Blog

Trib Total Media, Inc, yourplum.com
BYLINE: Karen Zapf, Staff Writer
Link to Article

Plum, PA

Plum police learned just how impor­tant it is to prop­erly han­dle evidence. 

A res­i­dent came to the police sta­tion in March 2002 to retrieve his Colt .45-caliber pis­tol that police had con­fis­cated from him two years ear­lier, when they served him with a protection-from-abuse order.

As the depart­ment called in the state police to inves­ti­gate the miss­ing gun, a Plum offi­cer dis­cov­ered about 35 pounds of mar­i­juana was miss­ing from evidence.

“It was a sick­en­ing feel­ing,” said Lt. Jeff Arm­strong who took charge as the department’s evi­dence cus­to­dian in early 2002 and worked to cor­rect the flawed sys­tem. “I said, ‘Here we go again.’” 

Evi­dence han­dling and, in par­tic­u­lar, keep­ing track of where evi­dence is at all times, can make or break cases for police departments. 

Green Tree police Lt. Chad Ran­ni­gan said evi­dence must be han­dled prop­erly start­ing with the first offi­cer at the scene of a crime or a case might be lost when it goes to court. 

“The col­lec­tion of phys­i­cal evi­dence begins with the ini­tial offi­cer, and the integrity of the chain of evi­dence is cru­cial in the suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tion of cases in today’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem,” said Ran­ni­gan, who is the evi­dence cus­to­dian for that department. 

“Evi­dence is a police department’s biggest lia­bil­ity,” Ran­ni­gan said. And in my expe­ri­ence, you want to have the least amount of oppor­tu­nity for peo­ple (offi­cers) to have access (to evidence).”

Ran­ni­gan con­ducts an evi­dence audit every six months and a com­pre­hen­sive inven­tory once a year.

Under the Green Tree police sys­tem, when offi­cers bring evi­dence into the depart­ment, they pack­age it accord­ing to whether it is going into the department’s evi­dence area or to the county crime lab, Ran­ni­gan said.

Offi­cers place the evi­dence in a locker, remove the num­bered card and place it in Rannigan’s mail slot. Offi­cers place the key into the key-drop area of the two-way locker.

Ran­ni­gan accesses the items from inside the evi­dence room.

“I am the only one who has access to the pan­els inside,” Ran­ni­gan said.

The room also con­tains a safe to store recov­ered money.

Ran­ni­gan signs for evi­dence that is taken out and signs again when it comes back to the evi­dence room.

“You must have doc­u­men­ta­tion in writ­ing,” Ran­ni­gan said.

The evi­dence room is mon­i­tored by a sur­veil­lance cam­era, Ran­ni­gan said. 

In the midst of deal­ing with the miss­ing evi­dence in Plum in 2002, Arm­strong, who worked with a cou­ple of other offi­cers, decided to relo­cate the evi­dence room from an office area that con­tains a win­dow to an area adja­cent to the department’s lockup. 

“The evi­dence room was a night­mare,” Arm­strong said. “There was no record-keeping and no rhyme or rea­son as to where things were. And there was no rhyme or rea­son (as to) when things were destroyed.”

Today, offi­cers place evi­dence, includ­ing iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion, in a locker out­side the evi­dence room.

Arm­strong and Offi­cer James Miller, the only offi­cers with access to the room, put a bar code on it and place it on shelves in the evi­dence room. The room also con­tains a safe for money.

Plum police have had no evi­dence go miss­ing since the inci­dents in 2002, Arm­strong said. 

The mar­i­juana has not been located, Arm­strong said.

The state police charged Plum police offi­cer Andrew McNelis in con­nec­tion with the miss­ing weapon. McNelis later pleaded guilty in fed­eral court to attempt­ing to mail the hand­gun back to the owner. McNelis was fired and sen­tenced to probation.

Arm­strong said police returned the gun to the owner. 

Shaler police Detec­tive David Benko lives by a few rules of evi­dence handling.

“It is rel­a­tively easy to do,” said Benko, who has been the department’s evi­dence cus­to­dian for a quar­ter of a cen­tury. “You have one evi­dence offi­cer, one lock, one key and one room.”

“I have never lost a piece of evi­dence in 25 years,” Benko said.

The Shaler police department’s 12-foot-by-40-foot evi­dence room con­tains three cat­e­gories of items — firearms, gen­eral evi­dence and drugs, Benko said.

Money is stored sep­a­rately in a safe.

The evi­dence is cat­e­go­rized by the year it was recov­ered and the case number.

Benko in gen­eral keeps evi­dence four to five years. 

Benko and other offi­cers inter­viewed also fol­low the Allegheny County Dis­trict Attorney’s Office evi­dence destruc­tion guidelines.

DNA evi­dence gen­er­ally should be kept 75 years, said Tom Swan, deputy dis­trict attor­ney who has worked in the evi­dence area for 15 years. 

Drug evi­dence typ­i­cally is destroyed after the offender’s sentencing. 

Firearm destruc­tion is han­dled on a case-by-case basis.

“You have to find out if the gun is stolen, find the owner and find out if they can get it back,” Swan said.

Also, the dis­trict attorney’s office col­lects firearms from depart­ments about once a year and destroys them. 

“In the last four years, we’ve col­lected 10,000 guns,” Swan said.

Also, drugs are col­lected and are incinerated.

The Bald­win police depart­ment has an evi­dence room and a refrig­er­ated area for blood sam­ples and rape kits.

Chief Michael Scott and evi­dence clerk Lyn­nette Mar­riner have access to the evi­dence room. Items, mostly guns, drugs and money, are cat­e­go­rized by case num­ber, and a sur­veil­lance cam­era mon­i­tors the room, Scott said.

The room also con­tains a safe for recov­ered money.

“I have the access code to it (the safe),” Scott said.

The chief said one of the most unusual items in the evi­dence room is a may­on­naise jar that the rob­ber of a Sunoco gas sta­tion was observed on cam­era pick­ing up and plac­ing down prior to the robbery.

The rob­ber was dressed like Super­man and wear­ing pajama bot­toms. A sus­pect is await­ing trial..

Bald­win typ­i­cally fol­lows the dis­trict attorney’s office guide­lines for preser­va­tion and destruc­tion of evi­dence though some­times, it’s ben­e­fi­cial to hold on to items, Scott said.

“I’m reluc­tant to destroy things,” Scott said. “Some things resurface.”

Bald­win police recently bought an incin­er­a­tor to dis­pose of drug evidence. 

“We’ll be adver­tis­ing for res­i­dents to bring their pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tions to the bor­ough (for incin­er­a­tion),” Scott said.

Offi­cers with the Mon­roeville police depart­ment spent many hours plan­ning the evi­dence room that mea­sures about 10 feet by 30 feet before the new munic­i­pal build­ing was con­structed a decade ago.

Monroeville’s evi­dence room has been a model for other departments.

Arm­strong said he vis­ited Mon­roeville in 2002 when he redid Plum’s evi­dence area.

Just two of the department’s 40-plus offi­cers have access to the room.

Cpl. Jason Safar and Sgt. Ron McConnell are the only offi­cers who can gain access to the room.

“Offi­cers need (to com­plete) writ­ten requests to get evi­dence back out — mostly to go to court,” Safar said. 

The room con­tains firearms, drugs, a safe for money, evi­dence recov­ered from bur­glar­ies and lost items turned in to the department.

“We have a 90-day rule for (lost) items that are turned in,” Safar said.

Safar said one of the most unusual items con­tained in Monroeville’s evi­dence room is a Samu­rai sword.

“And last year, we had 27 bikes,” Safar said. “We donated some to Goodwill.” 

The depart­ment con­ducts an inven­tory of the items once a year.

Swan of the dis­trict attorney’s office said each police depart­ment, regard­less of size, must have guide­lines in place to han­dle evidence. 

“Even the small­est depart­ment has to have an area secured in the police depart­ment for evi­dence,” Swan said.

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