IAPE Evidence Blog

World­Now and KOTV, NewsOn6.com, newson6.com
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Cush­ing, OK

Dal­ton Dash Brown

CUSHING, Okla­homa — Agents with the Okla­homa State Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion arrested a man they say broke into a police sta­tion and stole prop­erty from the evi­dence room.

Police in Cush­ing, Okla­homa got a call about a door open on a vacant apart­ment right next to the Cush­ing police evi­dence room.

Offi­cers found that some­one had busted through the wall and into a room where they store evi­dence. Police quickly dis­cov­ered items from the prop­erty room were missing.

They tracked the break-in to Cush­ing res­i­dent, 26-year-old Dal­ton Dash Brown. He was arrested at the Payne County Cour­t­house while he was appear­ing on another bur­glary case.

After a two-day audit, police are con­fi­dent they’ve recov­ered the stolen evidence.

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

NorthJersey.com, northjersey.com, Neigh­bor News (Denville Edi­tion)
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Denville Town­ship, NJ

Mor­ris County Pros­e­cu­tor Robert A. Bianchi, Esq., announced on Oct. 27 that Denville Police Offi­cer Eugene Blood, 38, had been charge with offi­cial mis­con­duct and other crim­i­nal offenses.

Accord­ing to a state­ment released by the prosecutor’s office, in April 2011, Denville Lt. Paul Nigro con­tacted the Mor­ris County Prosecutor’s Office Pro­fes­sional Stan­dards Unit to report that he sus­pected that some­one was tam­per­ing with the Police Department’s evi­dence room.

The inves­ti­ga­tion, which was jointly con­ducted between the Mor­ris County Prosecutor’s Office Pro­fes­sional Stan­dards Unit and Tech­ni­cal Assis­tance Response Unit (TARU) and the Denville Town­ship Police Depart­ment, alleges that Offi­cer Blood broke into the Denville Town­ship Police Department’s evi­dence room and allegedly stole con­trolled dan­ger­ous sub­stances that were in evidence.

The inves­ti­ga­tion, reports say, also included the assign­ment of a mem­ber of the Pro­fes­sional Stan­dards Unit to the police depart­ment for a four month period.

The list of charges against Offi­cer Blood include two counts of offi­cial mis­con­duct, third degree charge of bur­glary and attempted bur­glary, theft of con­trolled dan­ger­ous sub­stances, attempted theft of con­trolled dan­ger­ous sub­stances and crim­i­nal mischief.

“We imme­di­ately brought for­ward this mat­ter as soon as we iden­ti­fied that we had an issue,” said Chief Christo­pher Wag­ner. “I am extremely dis­ap­pointed in the actions of this one officer.”

Offi­cer Blood was hired by the Denville Town­ship Police Depart­ment on Jan­u­ary of 2003 and had served in the department’s patrol divi­sion and in the Detec­tive Bureau and Police Depart­ment Evi­dence Custodian.

“I do, how­ever, stand by all of the other fine offi­cers of the Denville Town­ship Police Depart­ment who wear the uni­form with pride and go out each and every day to serve the res­i­dents of Denville Town­ship with honor and integrity,” Chief Wag­ner said. “Offi­cer Blood has been sus­pended with­out pay from the Denville Town­ship Police Depart­ment since the end of August 2011.”

Pros­e­cu­tor Bianchi also com­mended Chief Christo­pher Wag­ner and Lt. Paul Nigro for imme­di­ately bring­ing the sit­u­a­tion to the atten­tion of the Pro­fes­sional Stan­dards Unit.

“These alle­ga­tions are very seri­ous in and of them­selves, as well as the fact that it com­pro­mised numer­ous crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions,” said Mor­ris County Pros­e­cu­tor Robert A. Bianchi, Esq. “The Mor­ris County Prosecutor’s Office and the Denville Town­ship Police Depart­ment have spent the past four months exam­in­ing every piece of evi­dence on every case in the Denville Town­ship Police Department’s evi­dence room to deter­mine what cases have been com­pro­mised. On cases that may have been com­pro­mised in Supe­rior Court, this office is in the process of noti­fy­ing all affected defen­dants and/or their attor­neys of the inves­ti­ga­tion. The same will occur in Munic­i­pal Court, as well.”

Bianchi also said that the “mat­ter is lim­ited to this one offi­cer, and is by no means a reflec­tion of the Denville Town­ship Police Depart­ment. Chief Wag­ner and Lieu­tenant Nigro have been involved in every aspect of this inves­ti­ga­tion. They have pro­fes­sion­ally and admirably rep­re­sented the oth­er­wise fine offi­cers of the Denville Town­ship Police Department.”

Offi­cer Blood will be sched­uled to appear for his first appear­ance for arraignment.

Despite these pend­ing charges every defen­dant is pre­sumed inno­cent, unless and until found guilty beyond a rea­son­able doubt fol­low­ing a jury trial at which the defen­dant has all of his or her rights guar­an­teed by the U.S. and New Jer­sey Con­sti­tu­tion and rel­e­vant state law.

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

Dothan Eagle, Tech­nol­ogy Mar­ket­ing Corp., tmcnet.com

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New­ton, AL

NEWTON, Oct 14, 2011 (Dothan Eagle — McClatchy-Tribune Infor­ma­tion Ser­vices via COMTEX) — Multiple pieces of evi­dence, includ­ing drugs, were taken from New­ton Police Depart­ment some­time between Thurs­day night and Fri­day morn­ing dur­ing a bur­glary, accord­ing to authorities.

An inves­ti­ga­tion by the depart­ment, Dale County Sheriff’s Office, and Alabama Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion was under­way through much of Fri­day as author­i­ties fol­lowed up on poten­tial leads.

New­ton Police Chief John Beist­line declined to com­ment pend­ing fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. New­ton Mayor Ted Stan­ford said the depart­ment was in the process of tak­ing inven­tory Fri­day, but that mul­ti­ple pieces of evi­dence appeared taken, includ­ing drugs.

It was not imme­di­ately released what kind of weapons — if any — were taken in the burglary.

Stan­ford said offi­cers work on call through­out the night but that the town does not oper­ate the police department’s office full-time.

“We’ve tried at one point to have offi­cers inside the depart­ment at all times but we’ve not been able to with our income down as much as it is because of the econ­omy,” Stan­ford said.

“This is one inci­dent, how­ever. We just have to fix it and move on.”

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