IAPE Evidence Blog

The Daily News, galvestondailynews.com
BYLINE: Christo­pher Smith Gon­za­lez, The Daily News
Link to Article

La Mar­que, TX

LA MARQUE — Drugs, money and pos­si­bly firearms all went miss­ing from the School Dis­trict Police Department’s evi­dence room at some point dur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion of the pre­vi­ous police chief, Tim­o­thy Fields, the cur­rent police chief for the school dis­trict, said.

Fields said he learned of the miss­ing items when he con­ducted an audit soon after he was appointed chief in July 2010. Fields would not go into specifics about the weapons reported missing.

Fields said he noti­fied the Texas Rangers, which often inves­ti­gates other law-enforcement agen­cies, about the miss­ing evi­dence when he first did the audit. Since then, he also has found an offense report writ­ten by a for­mer school dis­trict offi­cer on June 29, 2009 that states evi­dence had gone miss­ing, Fields said.

He also has found an April 2009 email between for­mer police Chief Rus­sell Wash­ing­ton and the school district’s human resources direc­tor dis­cussing miss­ing evi­dence, Fields said.

Wash­ing­ton could not be reached for comment.

Fields was appointed police chief after Wash­ing­ton was fired in 2010. At the time, Wash­ing­ton was under indict­ment in an alleged attempt to fal­sify doc­u­ments to obtain a title to a vehicle.

The charges were dropped, and Wash­ing­ton has demanded his old job back, along with compensation.

An inves­ti­ga­tion into the miss­ing evi­dence was under way, and no sus­pects had been iden­ti­fied, Fields said.

“This is not some­thing that was done on a whim,” Fields said of the inves­ti­ga­tion. “The only thing I’m doing is try­ing to pro­tect the integrity of the department.”

Some­one needs to be held account­able for the miss­ing evi­dence, Fields said.

He said one of the rea­sons he was adamant about fol­low­ing through with the inves­ti­ga­tion was he didn’t want to be left respon­si­ble for some­thing that did not hap­pen under his watch.

“I don’t want it to blow up in my face,” Fields said.

The miss­ing evi­dence was kept in a locked file cab­i­net in a room at the high school, Fields said. Only the school district’s police offi­cers had access to it, he said. Fields said he now is the only offi­cer who has access to that room.

He said he has asked for assis­tance from the dis­trict attorney’s office and the fed­eral Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo­sives. He said Texas Rangers have come by the depart­ment and that he was work­ing with them to file the paper­work the Rangers need.

Ecomet Bur­ley, super­in­ten­dent for the La Mar­que school dis­trict, said he had been made aware of the miss­ing items by Fields.

“It is an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion by the chief of police into the miss­ing items and the incon­sis­ten­cies in the report that was filed,” Bur­ley said.

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

The Ari­zona Repub­lic, azcentral.com
BYLINE: D.S. Wood­fill, The Ari­zona Repub­lic
Link to Article

Sur­prise, AZ

Two inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tions in the Sur­prise Police Depart­ment have gone into a sec­ond year hav­ing no clear end in sight.

One case, involv­ing for­mer Assis­tant Chief Scott Con­nelly and an uniden­ti­fied employee, started in June. Offi­cials said they hope to wrap it up by the end of the year, but it could take longer if the other employee appeals any dis­ci­pline that may be meted out.

The other case con­cerns $33,000 in drug money stolen from a depart­ment evi­dence locker in Sep­tem­ber 2010. Police had con­fis­cated the cash in two drug inves­ti­ga­tions — one in March 2008 and the other in Feb­ru­ary 2009. Police said they have been wait­ing for a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion by the Phoenix Police Depart­ment to end before begin­ning an internal-affairs inves­ti­ga­tion inter­views in earnest.

The Repub­lic has sought pub­lic records in the miss­ing money and Con­nelly cases.

MISSING DRUG MONEY

The Repub­lic learned in March that $33,000 in drug money had gone miss­ing from a police evi­dence locker six months ear­lier. The Police Depart­ment — headed at the time by interim Chief Mark Schott — didn’t pub­licly dis­close the theft, but reported it to the Phoenix Police Depart­ment, which began a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion. That inves­ti­ga­tion has is now in its sec­ond year.

Sur­prise Chief Mike Fra­zier, who took over for Schott in Feb­ru­ary, told The Repub­lic in March that the money was seized by police from sus­pected drug dealers.

The theft sparked out­rage from the new chief, who said he was “gravely con­cerned” about the miss­ing money and the fact that the depart­ment may still have a thief in its midst.

In addi­tion to the inter­nal inquiry and crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, Fra­zier ordered an over­haul of secu­rity pro­ce­dures, which were crit­i­cized by at least one employee from the evi­dence depart­ment, accord­ing to Phoenix police doc­u­ments. Frazier’s reforms included stricter lim­its on employee-access to the evi­dence room and addi­tional video cam­eras to cover blind spots.

Where the inves­ti­ga­tion stands:

Sur­prise offi­cials orig­i­nally said the crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion could last sev­eral weeks to a few months. How­ever, the review has no clear end in sight.

On Tues­day, Sur­prise Police Com­man­der Terry Young said inves­ti­ga­tors still do not have any sus­pects. He said it’s pos­si­ble that the cul­prit or cul­prits are no longer employed at the department.

Young was non­com­mit­tal when asked if he is con­fi­dent inves­ti­ga­tors will dis­cover who stole the money.

“That’s cer­tainly my goal,” he said. “Obvi­ously, there’s no guarantee.”

Young said he had been wait­ing for the crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion to reach a point where he could start inter­view­ing employ­ees for the inter­nal inquiry. That process has started, he said.

“As a mat­ter of pro­to­col, we let the crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion unfold first,” he said. “We don’t want to inter­fere with or step on the toes of that crim­i­nal investigation.”

Young said fed­eral law also pro­tects gov­ern­ment employ­ees from being com­pelled to pro­vide poten­tially self-incriminating infor­ma­tion to employ­ers dur­ing a crim­i­nal investigation.

“For exam­ple, if I talk to an employee on an admin­is­tra­tive mat­ter, I have the right as the employer to com­pel them to answer my ques­tions,” he said. “But crim­i­nally, obvi­ously, you have the Fifth Amend­ment right to remain silent.

“So, we take a lot of pre­cau­tions to make sure that we’re not speak­ing to peo­ple who might ulti­mately be inter­viewed crim­i­nally. You can start kind of cloud­ing that line for them as to when they have to talk, when they don’t and are they pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion that they should be pro­tected from,” he said.

Young said the depart­ment began inter­view­ing peo­ple because the crim­i­nal case is wind­ing down. Still, the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion can­not con­clude until they have all the infor­ma­tion from the crim­i­nal investigation.

What’s Next:

Theron Quaas, the lead Phoenix detec­tive inves­ti­gat­ing the theft, didn’t respond to requests for an interview.

When asked if the crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion could take another year, Young said, “It should not take any­where close to another year.”

Young said the inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion should end within 120 days after the crim­i­nal case is closed.

What oth­ers have said:

Coun­cil­man John Williams said the coun­cil has no role track­ing the inves­ti­ga­tions of the miss­ing money or in the inquiry involv­ing Con­nelly and declined to com­ment. He said it’s not appro­pri­ate for the coun­cil to get involved in mat­ters that aren’t policy-related unless pub­lic trust is at stake.

Still, Williams said he would request an update from the city man­ager, say­ing his inter­est was piqued, but “I don’t plan on run­ning any inter­fer­ence or insert­ing myself.”

Pierce Mur­phy, a board mem­ber of the Idaho-based National Asso­ci­a­tion for Civil­ian Over­sight of Law Enforce­ment, said there’s no set time for how long an inves­ti­ga­tion should last if it’s con­nected to crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing. Such cases can be more com­plex than admin­is­tra­tive inquiries over pol­icy violations.

Mur­phy is also the Boise Police Department’s ombuds­man, in charge of inves­ti­gat­ing pub­lic com­plaints and audit­ing internal-affairs investigations.

Mur­phy, who was unfa­mil­iar with the details of the Sur­prise case, said a year could be rea­son­able for an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion that is part of a crim­i­nal case.

He said, for exam­ple, a case could be con­nected to a fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tion, drug car­tel or because police are inves­ti­gat­ing wider cor­rup­tion that was uncov­ered by the orig­i­nal crime.

SCOTT CONNELLY

Con­nelly resigned Aug. 15 after being demoted from assis­tant police chief to sergeant in Jan­u­ary. Offi­cials said the demo­tion, which took effect imme­di­ately after it was announced, was voluntary.

The Repub­lic filed two public-records requests seek­ing infor­ma­tion from Connelly’s per­son­nel file — one after his demo­tion and another shortly before his resignation.

City Attor­ney Michael Bai­ley declined both requests, stat­ing in a let­ter dated Feb. 14 that state law lim­its pub­lic access to gov­ern­ment records if the doc­u­ments are con­fi­den­tial by statute, involves pri­vacy inter­ests or when dis­clo­sure is detri­men­tal to the state.

He did not say on which of those grounds offi­cials denied the request.

In his sec­ond denial let­ter dated Aug. 9, Bai­ley said the requested infor­ma­tion was the basis of a pend­ing inves­ti­ga­tion and state statute pro­hib­ited its release.

Nei­ther depart­ment offi­cials nor Con­nelly has dis­closed the nature of the inves­ti­ga­tion.
Where the inves­ti­ga­tion stands

Com­man­der Terry Young, who over­sees the department’s Pro­fes­sional Stan­dards Unit, would not share details on the case. He said it involves another unnamed employee who is cur­rently the sub­ject of an inves­ti­ga­tion in the same mat­ter. Police have long said they don’t com­ment on inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tions and are pro­hib­ited by state law from dis­clos­ing infor­ma­tion to the pub­lic on ongo­ing inter­nal investigations.

Offi­cials have said it does not include any sus­pected crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing.
What’s next?

Young said he hopes to con­clude the inves­ti­ga­tion con­cern­ing the other employee by year’s end.

When asked why the case requires that much time, Young said that it had been stalled by an “employee issue.” Young added he hasn’t been able to con­clude the inter­view por­tion of the investigation.

“As soon as I’m able to do so, then we can put that one to bed and be done with it,” he said.

Opin­ions on case vary

Six months is too long for most non-criminal inves­ti­ga­tions, said Pierce Mur­phy, a board mem­ber and past pres­i­dent of the Idaho-based National Asso­ci­a­tion for Civil­ian Over­sight of Law Enforcement. .

Mur­phy said inves­ti­ga­tions not involv­ing crim­i­nal acts should take only 60 to 90 days.

The rea­sons are myr­iad, he said. It’s unfair to allow offi­cers with careers and rep­u­ta­tions on the line to remain in limbo, he said.

Mur­phy added that if an officer’s bad behav­ior or mis­takes aren’t rec­ti­fied quickly, man­agers lose the oppor­tu­nity to cor­rect long-term behavior.

“If you’re talk­ing 180 to 365 days or more, I’m not sure you’re accom­plish­ing that goal,” he said. “The teach­able moment’s gone.”

Lengthy inves­ti­ga­tions also send the wrong mes­sage to other offi­cers, Mur­phy said. If employ­ees know bad behav­ior won’t be cor­rected swiftly, it lessens the con­cern they will be disciplined.

Mer­rick Bobb exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Police Assess­ment Resource Cen­ter, a Los Ange­les police watch­dog orga­ni­za­tion, said six months is the max­i­mum for less com­plex cases. He cited U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice guidelines.

How­ever, depart­ments should strive to con­clude them as quickly as pos­si­ble, he said.

Tim Dorn, pres­i­dent of the Ari­zona Asso­ci­a­tion of Chiefs of Police, said in an e-mail that the length of time an inves­ti­ga­tion should take “is based totally on the extent and nature of the investigation.”

But Dorn said a recently enacted law requires inves­ti­ga­tions to com­pleted within 120 days, but it does not apply to inves­ti­ga­tions that were started prior to the law’s adoption.

“There are exemp­tions for inves­ti­ga­tions which also involve a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, or where it can be clearly demon­strated that addi­tional time is nec­es­sary to com­plete the inves­ti­ga­tion,” he said.

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

LIN Tele­vi­sion Cor­po­ra­tion, KRQE, krqe.com
Reporter: Dean Sta­ley
Pro­ducer: Jason Aus­lan­der
Link to Arti­cle
One Video

Truth or Con­se­quences, NM

Unneeded shot­guns, assault rifles sold to public

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES (KRQE) — In the sum­mer of 2010, the Truth or Con­se­quences Police Depart­ment was hurt­ing for funds.

So Chief Patrick Gal­lagher had one of his lieu­tenants round up all the guns in the department’s evi­dence room that had been used in sui­cides, dropped off over the years for safe­keep­ing or were no longer needed for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions, and sold them to the pub­lic at an auc­tion in Las Cruces.

And that would have been per­fectly legal had Gal­lagher fol­lowed state law. But he didn’t.

In fact, the chief and his depart­ment com­pletely ignored all three things they were sup­posed to do under New Mex­ico law before sell­ing the weapons.

Gal­lagher said that if he made mis­takes with the auc­tion, he will make sure to toe the legal line if the depart­ment decides to sell off guns again.

“This auc­tion was not con­ducted with any mali­cious or nefar­i­ous intent in mind,” Gal­lagher said in a news release. “If we become aware of any errors or mis­takes made in the process they will be rectified.”

Sources told News 13 that Attor­ney Gen­eral Gary King’s office has launched an inves­ti­ga­tion into T or C’s gun auc­tion, though a spokesper­son refused to con­firm or deny the inquiry.

State law says that in order to dis­pose of or destroy weapons, law enforce­ment agen­cies must first adver­tise to try and find the orig­i­nal own­ers. Then the agency has to con­tact a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the state muse­ums, who must be allowed to inspect the guns for any his­tor­i­cal value. Finally, the depart­ment must obtain an order from a Dis­trict Court judge autho­riz­ing the disposal.

Gal­lagher admit­ted he didn’t do any of those things before send­ing 87 hand­guns, rifles, assault rifles and shot­guns to an auc­tion­eer in Las Cruces. A group of reg­is­tered gun deal­ers and gun afi­ciona­dos cleared by law enforce­ment bought the weapons June 26, 2010 at an auc­tion in Las Cruces, accord­ing to doc­u­ments obtained by News 13.

Less than a month later, T or C police received a check for $10, 451 from auc­tion­eer Charles Dick­er­son for the guns, accord­ing to the documents.

In addi­tion to admit­ting he didn’t fol­low the law, Gal­lagher told News 13 he wasn’t con­cerned about putting more guns back on the streets of New Mexico.

And he’s not alone.

The Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office reg­u­larly sells evi­dence room guns at auc­tion, accord­ing to a spokesper­son. How­ever, the agency fol­lows the para­me­ters set out in state law before sell­ing the guns, she said.

But police chiefs in the state’s three largest cities told News 13 they are con­cerned about sell­ing evi­dence room guns to the pub­lic. In fact, depart­ments in Santa Fe, Albu­querque and Las Cruces fol­low poli­cies call­ing for the destruc­tion of weapons that are no longer needed.

APD went so far as to buy a specially-designed gun-muncher a few years ago that slices the weapons in half, ren­der­ing them for­ever inoperable.

“I think it’s the last thing any­body would want is to have a firearm that was in our pos­ses­sion that some­how got sold and then some­how ended up in the wrong person’s hands and then was used in a crime,” said Albu­querque Police Chief Ray Schultz.

Schultz said APD stopped sell­ing weapons from the evi­dence room to the pub­lic more than 30 years ago.

“If they can be destroyed, let’s destroy it because, unfor­tu­nately, there’s many, many more out there in the wrong hands,” he said. “It’s not worth tak­ing the chance and we don’t need the money that bad.”

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