IAPE Evidence Blog

The La Crosse Tri­bune, lacrossetribune.com
BYLINE: ANNE JUNGEN ajungen@lacrossetribune.com
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La Crosse, WI

Shelves filled with evi­dence in the evi­dence room at the La Crosse Police Dept. Erik Daily

Highly secure police prop­erty rooms hold evidence

Proof of guilt can be found here, tucked inside manila envelopes stacked floor to ceil­ing. Cash hijacked from a bank. A DNA-laden rock used to smash a win­dow dur­ing a bur­glary. Drugs seized from an apart­ment after an over­dose. The La Crosse Police Department’s prop­erty area is the offi­cial repos­i­tory of evi­dence –method­i­cally orga­nized and pre­served — gleaned from crime scenes, vic­tims and suspects. 

The 1,000-square-foot area on the first floor is mon­i­tored by two secu­rity cam­eras and sealed to all but three peo­ple: a sergeant, a lieu­tenant and a prop­erty clerk. Even the chief is pro­hib­ited from enter­ing with­out supervision.

There’s no rea­son for oth­ers to be in here, police Sgt. Randy Rank said.

“You want to keep who has access to a min­i­mum,” he said.

Within the prop­erty area, three rooms house more than 20,000 pieces of evi­dence, most sealed inside large envelopes filed in boxes and plas­tic tubs on six mov­able shelv­ing units. This year alone has pro­duced about 3,100 items from 1,200 cases.

Offi­cers and inves­ti­ga­tors are respon­si­ble for col­lect­ing, pack­ag­ing and label­ing evi­dence before it’s turned over to prop­erty clerk Kris­tine Gasch, who elec­tron­i­cally logs and labels the item by case number.

The cache includes DNA sam­ples, drugs, soda cans, cloth­ing, knives, metal bats, sur­veil­lance videos and car parts. An arson case yielded a charred piece of roof.

“You name it, we got it,” Rank said.

Three freez­ers hold dried and pre­served bio­log­i­cal evi­dence. Advances in foren­sic tech­nol­ogy have increased the vol­ume of DNA sam­ples in the past sev­eral years, Rank said, and the depart­ment becomes respon­si­ble after pro­cess­ing at the state Crime Lab­o­ra­tory in Madison.

Con­fis­cated drugs are stored in two old jail cells, in a small room with a fan to con­trol odor and mold growth. Guns are kept in locked cab­i­nets; cash also is stored separately.

Vehi­cles and other larger items are stored under the same secu­rity mea­sures in a pole barn on city-owned prop­erty. The site also holds evi­dence from cold or older cases, includ­ing the 1954 inves­ti­ga­tion into Eve­lyn Hartley’s disappearance.

Police annu­ally col­lect 5,000 to 6,000 pieces of evi­dence. Prop­erly main­tain­ing and orga­niz­ing each piece is cru­cial to build­ing a crim­i­nal case, La Crosse County Dis­trict Attor­ney Tim Gru­enke said.

“It’s even more impor­tant they main­tain the evi­dence in a way that allows it to be ana­lyzed if nec­es­sary for fin­ger­prints, DNA, or other sci­en­tific test­ing, for trial and some­times even after a con­vic­tion to sup­port an appeal,” Gru­enke said.

Audits are done annu­ally on a small, ran­dom selec­tion of guns, drug items, cash and other items, and the rooms can be inspected unan­nounced by the chief. No audit has raised a prob­lem, accord­ing to police and Gruenke.

The depart­ment must reg­u­larly purge evi­dence to make room for new items. Evi­dence from unsolved homi­cide cases, how­ever, must be saved indefinitely.

Mis­de­meanor case evi­dence can be purged 18 months after con­vic­tion. Felony case evi­dence can be dis­posed of 18 months after con­vic­tion as well with per­mis­sion from the prosecutor.

The depart­ment also noti­fies defen­dants that prop­erty will be destroyed if they do not object.

DNA evi­dence is thrown out, while drugs are burned in an incin­er­a­tor. Guns are destroyed at the state Crime Lab, offi­cials said.

“We don’t want them end­ing up back on the street,” Rank said.

The evi­dence room at the La Crosse Police Dept.

Photo Credit: Erik Daily

Grow­ing evidence

La Crosse police col­lect thou­sands of pieces of evi­dence each year in mis­de­meanor and felony cases.

Year: Items collected

2006: 6,215

2007: 5,897

2008: 5,441

2009: 6,147

WHAT IS EVIDENCE?

Any tan­gi­ble item police can gather from a crime scene or a vic­tim can be con­sid­ered case evi­dence. Those items can include any­thing from DNA and vehi­cles to dig­i­tal records from secu­rity cam­eras and squad cars.

Source: La Crosse Police Department

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

DailyComet.com
Link to Arti­cle
BYLINE: Ray­mond Legendre, Staff Writer

Assump­tion Parish, LA

THIBODAUX — As an inves­ti­ga­tion into poten­tial wrong­do­ing in its evi­dence room con­tin­ues, the Assump­tion Sheriff’s Office announced Wednes­day that it has hired a for­mer State Police lieu­tenant to improve pro­ce­dures for stor­ing and main­tain­ing evidence.

Among his many duties, Thane Matis, a retired State Police lieu­tenant who has 28 years of law-enforcement expe­ri­ence, will install the Assump­tion Sheriff’s Office’s newly pur­chased Jus­tice­Trax prop­erty and evi­dence soft­ware and enter the evi­dence data into the new track­ing sys­tem. He also will be asked to ensure the integrity of evi­dence from the time it is col­lected until a case goes to trial and tes­tify at tri­als about the chain of cus­tody of the evidence.

“The heal­ing process has begun, and we’re mov­ing for­ward,” said Assump­tion Sher­iff Mike Waguespack.

Matis is enter­ing a messy sit­u­a­tion that could result in crim­i­nal charges for his pre­de­ces­sor and have major impli­ca­tions for hun­dreds of drug cases in Assump­tion Parish.

Lt. Louis Lam­bert, who served as the Assump­tion Sheriff’s Office’s evi­dence cus­to­dian for seven years, is being inves­ti­gated by the State Police after he allegedly “mis­han­dled” evi­dence in a drug case that was sched­uled to begin trial in April. Offi­cials have not released details as to how Lam­bert allegedly mis­han­dled the drugs or what type of drugs were involved.

Lam­bert, who is sus­pended with pay, has not been charged with a crime. That could change based on State Police’s inves­ti­ga­tory find­ings, Wagues­pack said.

It is still too early to pre­dict when State Police’s inves­ti­ga­tion will con­clude, said Sgt. Markus Smith, a State Police spokesman. “We want it to be com­pleted as soon as it can,” he said, “but we don’t want to rush it and miss some­thing that’s key.”

A sep­a­rate audit that could affect hun­dreds of drug cases in Assump­tion Parish also remains open. The Pub­lic Agency Train­ing Coun­cil, based out of Indi­anapo­lis, is per­form­ing an inven­tory on the items inside the Assump­tion Sheriff’s Office’s evi­dence room in Labadieville.

The Assump­tion Sheriff’s Office is tem­porar­ily keep­ing evi­dence in a vault inside its main office in Napoleonville. That evi­dence will be moved to the agency’s crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions office in Labadieville once all inves­ti­ga­tions into Lambert’s con­duct are completed.

A deputy who has worked with evi­dence since alle­ga­tions against Lam­bert arose will assist Matis, Wagues­pack said. That deputy’s name was not imme­di­ately available.

“We’ve got our boots on the ground impli­cat­ing a new sys­tem,” Wagues­pack said. He added that he expected a com­plete re-inventory, an over­haul of pol­icy and pro­ce­dures and the instal­la­tion of a new evi­dence data­base within three months.

Staff Writer Ray­mond Legendre can be reached at 448‑7617 or raymond.legendre@houmatoday.com. Fol­low him on Twit­ter @cometcrime.

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

www.fox8live.com
BYLINE: Rob Mas­son, Reporter, rmasson@fox8tv.net
Link to Arti­cle
One Video

New Orleans, LA

New Orleans act­ing police chief War­ren Riley talks with reporters in New Orleans Mon­day Oct. 10, 2005. Riley spoke about the per­sonal loss of many of his offi­cers. It is thought that 80 per­cent of the force lost home to the hur­ri­cane. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

New Orleans — It was a major breech of secu­rity in a police depart­ment that was on the rebound after Katrina.

$200,000 taken from the N.O.P.D. evi­dence room, and with just days left in his admin­is­tra­tion, Chief War­ren Riley is deter­mined to solve the crime.

It was an affront to vet­eran defense attor­ney Rick Teissier.

Back in Novem­ber of 2008, Teissier learned that $20,000 of his client’s dol­lars were miss­ing from the New Orleans Police evi­dence room.

That evi­dence room was noth­ing like it used to be.

But even after Kat­rina forced the flooded evi­dence room to be moved three times, Riley was con­fi­dent that proper secu­rity pro­ce­dures were still being main­tained to pro­tect evi­dence cen­tral to hun­dreds of court cases.

In an exclu­sive inter­view with FOX 8, Riley said, “Our pol­icy clearly states, just the com­man­der and an indi­vid­ual offi­cer have access, two keys.”

When FOX 8 broke the story about the thefts, Riley says he was sur­prised to learn that nearly a dozen peo­ple had access to evi­dence room keys.

The thefts, total­ing well over $200,000 in cash, spurred a lot of reper­cus­sions. Teissier threat­ened to file a lawsuit.

The theft also started a war of words with for­mer evi­dence room chief Danny Law­less, who counted a for­mer D.A. among his supporters.

Harry Con­nick called for the mayor to fire Riley.

A year and a half later, the thief, or thieves are still not caught. But with just three and a half weeks left at the helm of the NOPD, Riley says he is deter­mined to pin­point who’s responsible.

The chief has now announced some extra­or­di­nary steps to find a thief within the ranks.

Riley says, “Sev­eral weeks back I asked the I.R.S. to come in. They’re look­ing into their finan­cial back­ground, accounts, peo­ple mak­ing major purchases.

Dot­ting I’s so to speak to cover every aspect to that inves­ti­ga­tion,” Riley says.

Riley has also forced offi­cers and civil­ians, pre­vi­ously assigned to the evi­dence room, to take poly­graph tests

Many of those now impli­cated took the lie detec­tor tests in the pres­ence of lawyers fur­nished by the Fra­ter­nal Order of Police.

And while he ramps up his inves­ti­ga­tion, Riley says he’s com­pletely revamped evi­dence room secu­rity with two keys instead of nine.

“It won’t hap­pen in the future because now that money goes to the bank,” he says.

But there are still no arrests, some­thing Riley hopes to correct.

“I have full inten­tion to close this out before I leave,” he says.

That’s a promise that will be a chal­lenge to keep with three and a half weeks left in his administration.

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