IAPE Evidence Blog

The Boston Globe, boston.com, METRODESK
BYLINE: Mil­ton J. Valen­cia, Globe Staff
Link to Article

Attle­boro, MA

Law enforce­ment offi­cials are inves­ti­gat­ing the sus­pi­cious dis­ap­pear­ance of cocaine and other ille­gal drugs from the Attle­boro Police Department’s evi­dence room fol­low­ing an audit trig­gered by a change of lead­er­ship in the department.

The city’s mayor, Kevin J. Dumas, con­firmed in a state­ment today that an inter­nal audit had dis­cov­ered that drugs were missing.

The results of the audit have trig­gered an inter­nal police inves­ti­ga­tion, with the assis­tance of an inde­pen­dent con­sul­tant. The Bris­tol dis­trict attorney’s office is also assist­ing in the inves­ti­ga­tion, and the state attor­ney general’s office has been notified.

Dumas said the audit was com­mis­sioned as a mat­ter of rou­tine when Chief Kyle Heag­ney took over as act­ing chief more than a year ago, fol­low­ing the con­tro­ver­sial res­ig­na­tion of for­mer Chief Richard Pierce.

“[Chief Heag­ney] and I are tak­ing this inves­ti­ga­tion very seri­ously and this type of mis­con­duct will not be tol­er­ated,” Dumas said in a state­ment. “I have full faith and con­fi­dence in Chief Heag­ney and all those who are par­tic­i­pat­ing in this investigation.”

Heag­ney said he is inves­ti­gat­ing whether the drugs were stolen and whether they were used by any officers.

“This cor­rup­tion is an insult to the eth­i­cal and decent offi­cers who do their job in a just man­ner, and their right­eous­ness is being over­shad­owed,” he said, say­ing the theft demon­strates the need for manda­tory drug test­ing for police officers.

“This type of cor­rup­tion makes the entire depart­ment look bad. I have zero tol­er­ance for police cor­rup­tion,” he said.

Gregg Mil­iote, a spokesman for Bris­tol Dis­trict Attor­ney Samuel Sut­ter, said his office is assist­ing in the inves­ti­ga­tion. He had no com­ment on whether the dis­ap­pear­ance of any drugs would inter­fere with Bris­tol County pros­e­cu­tions, say­ing, “I think we need to let the inves­ti­ga­tion play itself out.”

The dis­ap­pear­ance of the drugs was first reported today by The Sun Chron­i­cle of Attle­boro. Heag­ney said that that the drugs were dis­cov­ered to be miss­ing in August.

The chief hired APD Man­age­ment, a pri­vate police con­sult­ing com­pany run by for­mer Tewks­bury Police Chief Alfred P. Dono­van that spe­cial­izes in inter­nal police inves­ti­ga­tions, to help in the probe.

The dis­cov­ery of miss­ing drugs comes at a dif­fi­cult time for the depart­ment. Heag­ney, promis­ing reform, offi­cially took over in Octo­ber fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion last year of for­mer chief Pierce.

The for­mer chief stepped down at the request of Dumas amid alle­ga­tions that he mis­han­dled an inves­ti­ga­tion of his son, Patrol­man Richard Pierce Jr. The younger Pierce allegedly lied about the use of a Taser dur­ing an arrest, and was ulti­mately fired.

The depart­ment is also still cop­ing with the alleged wrong­do­ing of a vet­eran dis­patcher who was report­edly caught in a sting receiv­ing pack­ages of mar­i­juana sent through the mail ear­lier this month. The dis­patcher, Edward A. Gin­gras II of Attle­boro, is fac­ing charges related to the sting, Mil­iote said.

Heag­ney, a third-generation mem­ber of the depart­ment, whose father was a cap­tain, said he would root out wrong­do­ing within the depart­ment, but said it would take the coop­er­a­tion of hon­est police offi­cers as well.

“We only have bad cops when good cops help out,” he said. “We’ve had some police mis­con­duct, some cor­rup­tion issues, and it’s been a tough time. Nev­er­the­less … a par­a­digm shift is hap­pen­ing with this depart­ment.”
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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Repos­i­tory, CantonRep.com, cantonrep.com
BYLINE: Lori Mon­sewicz CantonRep.com staff writer
Link to Article

Can­ton, OH

CANTON — Sev­eral pounds of cocaine from a 2007 crim­i­nal case are miss­ing from the Can­ton Police Department’s Prop­erty Room, prompt­ing an inter­nal investigation.

Chief Dean McKimm said Wednes­day he asked the FBI to assist and that some police depart­ment employ­ees may be given a poly­graph test.

John Dysart, super­vi­sory senior res­i­dent agent in charge of the Can­ton FBI office, con­firmed McKimm’s request.

“He asked if we could help with a few things so they could sort it out,” Dysart said. “He asked if we could lend a hand.”

The miss­ing cocaine is already spoiled.

McKimm said offi­cers hop­ing to use some of it months ago for K-9 train­ing found it “ran­cid” and not useable.

Then again, McKimm said, the cocaine just may have been dis­carded with the trash.

“I don’t have any evi­dence that any­thing ille­gal was done,” he said. “One pos­si­bil­ity is that it just got straight thrown away with some other trash gen­er­ated by the destruc­tion process.”

Offi­cers dis­cov­ered about a week ago that the box con­tain­ing pos­si­bly four or five kilos — about 9 to 11 pounds  — was miss­ing. McKimm could not imme­di­ately recall the case linked to the cocaine.

The offi­cers had been prepar­ing for a “prop­erty destruc­tion” dur­ing which police receiv­ing a court release are per­mit­ted to destroy old evi­dence no longer needed in crim­i­nal cases. How it’s destroyed depends on the type of evi­dence, McKimm said.

“Cocaine and drugs are usu­ally burned, guns are melted, paper is shred­ded and then dis­carded,” he said.

Usu­ally, the effort involves the use of an incin­er­a­tor at a local factory.

The evi­dence in the prop­erty room is inven­to­ried and moved to a loca­tion where it can be pre­pared for destruc­tion, the chief said.

Typ­i­cally, some items are con­sol­i­dated into boxes while the boxes they had been in become trash and are discarded.

“What I believe is the prop­erty was mis­han­dled and pos­si­bly thrown away with some of the trash that was dis­carded dur­ing the prepa­ra­tion for the destruc­tion,” McKimm said.

“But we have to cover all the bases, and we’re cer­tainly going to inves­ti­gate so that we can elim­i­nate any pos­si­bil­ity of any crim­i­nal activ­ity by any officer.”

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

Sequim Gazette, sequimgazette.com
BYLINE: AMANDA WINTERS Sequim Gazette
Link to Article

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