IAPE Evidence Blog

World­Now and WOIO, a Ray­com Media Sta­tion, woio.com, 19 Action News
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Euclid, OH

EUCLID, OH (WOIO) — 19 Action News has uncov­ered new doc­u­ments in the inves­ti­ga­tion inside the Euclid Police Department.

The lat­est is an inter­nal memo.

Accord­ing to 19 Action News Reporter Ed Gallek, Euclid Police made it hard for us to get our hands on it but it shows slop­pi­ness pro­tect­ing evi­dence from cases and the slop­pi­ness goes back months and months.

We filed a pub­lic records request and Euclid gave us a memo from a cop to a boss. 

Big ques­tions were raised in March about how Euclid Police con­trol the room where they hold evi­dence. Evi­dence that helps decide if someone’s guilty or not.

Last month Euclid lead­ers told us Sergeant Kevin Blakely killed him­self. They say he did it in a meet­ing with super­vi­sors about an inves­ti­ga­tion into the prop­erty room.

But the memo shows the mys­tery was more than about him.

An offi­cer wrote, “I do not recall see­ing prop­erty log books in the last year. The sign in sheets folder has been removed. There was a long period where the door was bro­ken also.”

It is not clear how this affects any cases. The Sheriff’s Depart­ment is not talk­ing but they are investigating.

Euclid Police first said they didn’t have any memos about it but now we have this and we plan to keep digging.

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

NEWS5ABC, newsnet5.com
BYLINE: Gar­rett Down­ing
Link to Arti­cle
Two Videos
Link to Mayor’s State­ment
Link to Video

Euclid, OH

EUCLID, Ohio — The Euclid police offi­cer who com­mit­ted sui­cide at the sta­tion Wednes­day morn­ing was not coop­er­at­ing with an inves­ti­ga­tion con­ducted by the sheriff’s office and FBI, accord­ing to a state­ment Thurs­day from Euclid Mayor Bill Cervenik.

Sgt. Kevin Blake­ley was asked to meet with Euclid Police Chief James Repicky Wednes­day, in regards to why he was not coop­er­at­ing with the inves­ti­ga­tion, Cer­venik said.

“At the out­set of this meet­ing, Sergeant Blake­ley sud­denly and trag­i­cally ended his own life with a self-inflicted wound from his police weapon,” Cer­venik said. “No words were spo­ken, and no alter­ca­tion took place. This action taken by Sergeant Blake­ley occurred so quickly that the chief and the super­vi­sors present had no chance to stop this tragic incident.”

Euclid Mayor Bill Cer­venik talks to the media the day after an offi­cer com­mit­ted sui­cide at the police sta­tion. Pho­tog­ra­pher: Paul Kiska/WEWS

The inves­ti­ga­tion stemmed from a dis­cov­ery by the depart­ment that records and prop­erty logs were not being prop­erly main­tained within the depart­ment. An inter­nal audit was then con­ducted, Cer­venik said, con­firm­ing that incon­sis­ten­cies existed within the records.

Chief Repicky then asked the Cuya­hoga County Sher­iff, along with the help of the FBI, to inves­ti­gate the mis­han­dling of the records, Cer­venik said.

That inves­ti­ga­tion has yet to be com­pleted, Cer­venik said.

“While we are con­cerned with the family’s grief, we must also reduce mis­in­for­ma­tion, rumors and spec­u­la­tion that could make this very sad sit­u­a­tion even worse,” Cer­venik said.

Keep check­ing newsnet5.com for more information.

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

Vir­gin Islands Daily News, virginislandsdailynews.com
BYLINE: DANIEL SHEA, Daily News Staff
Link to Article

St. Croix, Vir­gin Islands

ST. CROIX — Every­thing that hap­pens in the V.I. Police Department’s new state-of-the-art evi­dence room on St. Croix is cap­tured by sur­veil­lance cameras.

Except when the cam­eras are turned off.

Every­one who enters the evi­dence room must pass through fail-safe ID and secu­rity procedures.

Except when the pro­ce­dures fail.

Every gun in the evi­dence room is securely locked up.

Except when it’s not.

Late on the night of July 25, a 28-year-old female police employee bypassed the elab­o­rate secu­rity sys­tem and a short time later was found there, shot dead with a gun that was in police cus­tody as evi­dence in a crime.

The Police Depart­ment calls the death a suicide.

The fam­ily calls it ques­tion­able, at best.

The death of Shakira Gau­tier occurred less than a week after V.I. Police offi­cials gave the gov­er­nor and media a tour of its new evi­dence facil­ity, specif­i­cally point­ing out redun­dant secu­rity mea­sures — such as areas acces­si­ble only by fin­ger­print ID and areas requir­ing dif­fer­ent codes from two employ­ees to gain entry — installed to bring it into com­pli­ance with the rec­om­men­da­tions of a fed­eral report released in 2009 that was highly crit­i­cal of the department’s evidence-handling procedures.

Police quickly ruled Gautier’s death a sui­cide and told The Daily News that video­tapes would be reviewed to con­firm the ruling.

Now, how­ever, police say that the video sur­veil­lance sys­tem was not in oper­a­tion and that Gau­tier eas­ily bypassed the redun­dant secu­rity measures.

The victim’s fam­ily say the story they have been told “doesn’t fit.”

V.I. Police Com­mis­sioner Nov­elle Fran­cis Jr. said that the police inves­ti­ga­tion con­firms that Gau­tier com­mit­ted sui­cide in the newly built evi­dence rooms on St. Croix, where, accord­ing to Fran­cis, Gau­tier used one of the guns that had been taken in as evi­dence and shot her­self in the mouth.

“There is no other angle at this point, except sui­cide,” Fran­cis said. “The report we received from the med­ical exam­iner ruled it a suicide.”

While sui­cide is the offi­cial cause of Gautier’s death, puz­zling details have emerged: Not only were the sur­veil­lance cam­eras in the facil­ity not work­ing, Gau­tier was not on duty, as police orig­i­nally stated.

Gautier’s father, George Gau­tier, said he does not believe his daugh­ter com­mit­ted sui­cide — or that she was depressed, as police have por­trayed her.

He described his daugh­ter — the only daugh­ter in a fam­ily with five sons — as a car­ing and happy girl.

“Shakira was a sweet per­son,” he said. “She was the dreamer of the house.”

After grad­u­at­ing from Cen­tral High School in 1999, Gau­tier attended two Florida col­leges and stud­ied pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tion — always dream­ing of join­ing the Police Depart­ment, her father said.

But then, while she was in the U.S. Navy, an explo­sion per­ma­nently injured her right knee, caus­ing her to walk with a limp, her father said.

Gau­tier, who lived on her own, had been at her par­ents’ house the day she died — the same as she was every Sun­day, her father said.

“She was happy,” George Gau­tier said. “I didn’t see no changes.”

Her uncle, Amin Guz­man, said she was con­stantly sur­rounded by a large, lov­ing family.

“My niece had too much going for her for her to end her life,” Guz­man said. “She had too much — just fam­i­ly­wise alone.”

In ini­tial state­ments, police indi­cated that Gau­tier was work­ing in the evi­dence room that Sun­day night with a foren­sic technician.

George Gau­tier said the last per­son that he knows of who spoke with his daugh­ter that day was her uncle, whom she told, “I’m to work,” around 8:30 p.m.

She was not sup­posed to be work­ing, how­ever. She never worked on Sun­days, her father said.

“It was obvi­ously after hours for her,” Fran­cis said. “She came in some­time after 11 o’clock. She was able to get into that area at that time and said she was com­ing in to work.”

The foren­sic offi­cer on duty had not been informed that Gau­tier was sup­posed to be work­ing but still granted her co-worker access — to an area to which Gau­tier had been denied, Fran­cis said.

It was the area where weapons are stored and the area where Gau­tier shot herself.

Fran­cis said there could be lit­i­ga­tion filed when the inves­ti­ga­tion is con­cluded, though he did not elab­o­rate, he said, because the mat­ter is ongoing.

He would not give the foren­sic technician’s name and said she has been on leave since the inci­dent and is receiv­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal treatment.

The room where the shoot­ing occurred is a vault, Fran­cis said. Only peo­ple with cer­tain secu­rity clear­ances can enter.

Gau­tier had been denied access for a rea­son: She had been deter­mined to be men­tally unsta­ble and suf­fer­ing from bouts of depres­sion — a con­di­tion for which she was see­ing Dr. Denise Mar­shall, the V.I. Police Department’s Behav­ioral Ser­vices Direc­tor, Fran­cis said.

In fact, Fran­cis said, Gautier’s depres­sion had got­ten so bad that she was told to take a 30-day leave. She returned to work three weeks before to her death.

George Gau­tier said the men­tal health diag­no­sis came after a car acci­dent ear­lier in the year. She had been on med­ica­tion for her knee and had a car acci­dent — her car rolled — he said.

She was deter­mined to be a dan­ger to her­self and restricted from the area of the evi­dence room that housed the firearms, Fran­cis said.

“That infor­ma­tion was cir­cu­lated to per­son­nel, and they should have known that that area was restricted,” Fran­cis said.

But on the night of July 25, Gau­tier did get into the room where firearms are stored — although she was not able to get in with her own cre­den­tials. She had to use the foren­sic technician’s infor­ma­tion, Fran­cis said.

“While the foren­sic offi­cer was putting away equip­ment, she was able to access that room,” Fran­cis said.

And, although police said the entire evi­dence area is cov­ered by video footage, Gautier’s death took place on a day that none of the video cam­eras were turned on, Fran­cis said.

“There is video footage every­where in there,” V.I. Police spokes­woman Melody Rames orig­i­nally had said of the evi­dence room when asked whether the shoot­ing had been cap­tured on tape.

How­ever, Fran­cis said later that the cam­eras had been turned off as a pre­ven­ta­tive pre­cau­tion after after WAPA power surges had “fried” two of the cameras.

“Every­thing was down,” Fran­cis said.

George Gau­tier does not buy it. The video cam­eras not work­ing, the use of a con­fis­cated weapon — “It doesn’t fit, it just doesn’t fit,” he said.

George Gau­tier ques­tioned the stor­age prac­tices in the evi­dence rooms, say­ing it would have been too hard for his daugh­ter to get the gun and the ammu­ni­tion with­out draw­ing attention.

The firearm that was used — George Gau­tier was told it was a .38 cal­iber — had recently been col­lected and test-fired, Fran­cis said. The gun and cor­re­spond­ing ammu­ni­tion, like all firearm evi­dence, were together.

“The firearms are kept unloaded,” Fran­cis said. “The bul­lets and the guns were kept in the same evi­dence box.”

Gau­tier would have had all she needed in the box to com­mit sui­cide. And while her father believes that there would have been more super­fi­cial evi­dence on her face if she had shot her­self in the mouth as police have said, a med­ical exam­iner disagrees.

George Gau­tier was able to see his daugh­ter after the shoot­ing and said she looked “calm” like “she was asleep.”

“Something’s got to show, but noth­ing there was show­ing,” he said. There was just a small stream of dried blood caked on the cor­ner of her mouth, he said

Dr. Mark Shu­man, an asso­ciate med­ical exam­iner in Miami-Dade County, Fla., said that a .38-caliber wound would not nec­es­sar­ily cause much exte­rior damage.

“When talk­ing about what you would see on the out­side, then you might not see a whole lot,” he said.

“Intra-oral gun­shot wounds are almost always sui­cide,” he said.

“Are they always? No.”

But he said he would look for bro­ken teeth and bruised and cut lips in the event of it being a homi­cide — things that George Gau­tier did not see.

The death still is under inves­ti­ga­tion, and the depart­ment is bring­ing in an inde­pen­dent crime scene recon­struc­tion­ist to put together a com­pre­hen­sive report, Fran­cis said.

Three recon­struc­tion­ists are being con­sid­ered and the fund­ing has not been approved yet, Fran­cis said.

It should be approved soon, he said.

While pro­to­col may have to be more strictly enforced, Fran­cis found no fault in the depart­men­tal procedure.

“I think we do have ade­quate pro­to­col in place,” he said. “It’s a mat­ter of deter­min­ing how and when it is used. Gau­tier was restricted from that area. She was receiv­ing ther­apy. She was on leave for 30 days.”

There are no plans to sep­a­rate the firearms and their ammu­ni­tion — “that’s not done any­where else in the coun­try,” Fran­cis said — and the cam­era sys­tem will be back up and func­tion­ing properly.

George Gau­tier said he does not plan to give up in his search for all the infor­ma­tion about what hap­pened to his daughter.

“I’m not going to quit,” he said. “I’m going to go all the way.”

Gauter is not the first death of a police employee in a V.I. police facil­ity and not the first whose shoot­ing leaves unan­swered ques­tions and an uncon­viced family.

In 2007, 28-year-old Police Offi­cer Dwayne Isaac was shot dead while on the job with his .40-caliber Glock ser­vice weapon. He had just returned to his desk at St. John’s Jur­gen Com­mand Sta­tion near the end of his early-morning shift.

Isaac had been on the job for only 14 months and had no his­tory of men­tal health prob­lems, Fran­cis said at the time, when he was then the assis­tant commissioner.

Isaac’s father does not believe his son com­mit­ted sui­cide, he has told The Daily News and, like George Guatier, he still seeks answers and details.

— Con­tact Daniel Shea at 774‑8772 ext. 457 or e-mail dshea@dailynews.vi. 

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