IAPE Evidence Blog

The Wenatchee World (Wash­ing­ton), STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
Dis­trib­uted by McClatchy-Tribune Busi­ness News
BYLINE: Dee Riggs, The Wenatchee World, Wash.

Wenatchee, WA

Aug. 26 — EAST WENATCHEE — An offi­cial at East­mont Junior High School found a pipe bomb inside the back­pack of a 14-year-old boy who was on the school grounds Wednes­day night.

The bomb, which was described as a low-explosive device, was dis­man­tled by police and placed in the evi­dence room at the East Wenatchee police sta­tion, said Dan Reier­son, assis­tant police chief.

It was made out of PVC pipe and filled with gun­pow­der the boys had removed from .22-caliber car­tridges, Reier­son said.

The boy told offi­cers he did not intend to set it off on the school grounds but rather “in a dif­fer­ent loca­tion for fun,” Reier­son said, pos­si­bly in a vacant lot.

The boy was with two other boys, ages 14 and 15, on the grounds. All three were cited for being minors in pos­ses­sion of alco­hol, Reier­son said. The boy with the bomb in his back­pack was referred to juve­nile offi­cials for hav­ing a pro­hib­ited explo­sive device and hav­ing a dan­ger­ous weapon on school prop­erty. All three were released to their parents.

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

Cor­pus Christi Caller-Times, SECTION: B; Pg. 9
BYLINE: Kather­ine Rosen­berg, rosenbergk@caller.com / 886‑3778

Cor­pus Christi, TX

The last thing you would expect to smell in the police depart­ment is the strong odor of marijuana.

But that’s what many vis­i­tors and even more employ­ees dealt with for days after nar­cotics offi­cers filled the evi­dence room with 2 pounds of hydro­ponic mar­i­juana that needed to be dried, Capt. John Hous­ton said.

Once the smell started giv­ing employ­ees headaches, offi­cials real­ized they had to do some­thing about the ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem in the first floor evi­dence room.

“It wasn’t a prob­lem when we were seiz­ing reg­u­lar pot, but hydro­ponic pot is so much more pun­gent,” Hous­ton said. “A 1-ounce bag of it was enough to fill the entire build­ing with the scent for two days.”

Hous­ton said with more drug deal­ers opt­ing to grow their own genet­i­cally enhanced mar­i­juana indoors, inves­ti­ga­tors real­ized it was time to upgrade the ven­ti­la­tion system.

Offi­cials hope that by mid-month they will have com­pleted the ren­o­va­tion, which includes adding ven­ti­la­tion and bring­ing in vent hoods to rapidly clear the room of nox­ious smells. Offi­cials also plan to start dry­ing mar­i­juana at an off-site location.

Offi­cials esti­mate it will cost about $5,000 to fix the old ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem, which has been in place since the police depart­ment moved into the build­ing in 1991, Hous­ton said.

But because hydro­ponic mar­i­juana seems to be an increas­ing trend, admin­is­tra­tors thought it best to make improve­ments now to stay ahead of the problem.

“It’s safety first,” Hous­ton said. “We called the fire depart­ment out to inspect, and the air qual­ity is fine. It’s not a health haz­ard. It’s not like paint­ing inside with the win­dows closed, but it was mak­ing employ­ees lightheaded.”

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

The Sequoyah County Times, sequoyahcountytimes.com
BYLINE: Court­ney Coble

Sal­li­saw, OK

On Wednes­day police piled up bags of debris and chem­i­cals that were destroyed by a Tues­day night fire at the Sal­li­saw Police Depart­ment. Capt. Beau Gab­bert makes his way back to bring out more bags to be placed in black bar­rels, hauled off and destroyed.

On Wednes­day police and spe­cial­ists shifted through debris left behind by a Tues­day night fire that started in a room inside the evi­dence room at the Sal­li­saw Police Department.

Police Chief Shaola Edwards said they are tak­ing the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions to insure the clean up goes smooth and quickly. Edwards said he was con­cerned with the pos­si­bil­ity of con­t­a­m­i­nated water runoff and haz­ardous debris. He said Envi­ron­men­tal Reme­di­a­tion Spe­cial­ists were called Tues­day night to assist in the clean up. There were some haz­ardous mate­ri­als like chem­i­cals from metham­phet­a­mine labs that had to be dis­posed of cor­rectly. Sev­eral bar­rels were brought in to dis­pose of the mate­ri­als and the debris safely.

City Man­ager Bill Baker said the evi­dence that was dam­aged went years and years back. He said the fire destroyed no high pro­file or mur­der cases because those cases are held in a dif­fer­ent room.

“Staff was bag­ging up large bags of old evi­dence most of Wednes­day and Thurs­day. We did lose stuff but it was noth­ing cur­rent,” Baker said.

Edwards said the evi­dence that was destroyed had already been to the state crime lab and been processed.

“The main things that were dam­aged were already in the process of being destroyed. There was not any high pro­file or mur­der cases harmed,” Edwards said.

U.S Fire Mar­shall Tony Rust was called to inves­ti­gate the fire. He deter­mined on Wednes­day after­noon that it was an elec­tri­cal fire.

“That is the bad thing about these older build­ings. They house some really old wiring,” Baker said.

Baker said the city’s build­ing devel­op­ment inspec­tor and an elec­tri­cian are com­ing to inspect the build­ing and the wiring. He said more then likely the wiring through­out the whole build­ing will have to be replaced.

Right now, the employ­ees who worked in the nearly 70-year-old build­ing are cur­rently work­ing in the newer police depart­ment build­ing that faces Chick­a­saw Avenue

The fire started about 9 p.m. Tues­day. Fire Chief Anthony Arm­strong said when he arrived he found small flames and heavy smoke com­ing from a restricted room inside the admin­is­tra­tive build­ing on 111 N. Elm St. He said about 16 Sal­li­saw fire­fight­ers were on scene within sec­onds of the call and they put out the flames quickly.

“The build­ing didn’t have a lot of struc­ture dam­age, but did have a large amount of smoke dam­age through­out the admin­is­tra­tion offices,” Edwards said.

Edwards said he is hop­ing to get things cleaned up and back to nor­mal soon.

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