IAPE Evidence Blog

Impe­r­ial Val­ley Press, ivpressonline.com
BYLINE: SILVIO J. PANTA Staff Writer
Link to Article

West­mor­land, CA

Two for­mer West­mor­land Police Depart­ment offi­cers who were arrested in rela­tion to the theft of fire­fight­ing equip­ment and weapons received jail terms Friday.

Juan Jesus Chavez, 26, and Alfredo Tovar, 29, each received the term of two years in state prison that Impe­r­ial County Supe­rior Court Judge Ray­mundo Cota sus­pended under the terms of an indi­cated sen­tence that instead placed both defen­dants on three years’ probation.

Chavez, a for­mer full-time police offi­cer who worked for the WPD for 18 months before his res­ig­na­tion in Feb­ru­ary, also received a year in county jail with credit for 78 days served.

Tovar, who worked as a WPD reserve offi­cer, got a jail term of 180 days with credit for one day served. Chavez received the larger sen­tence because he was sus­pected of hav­ing a larger role in the thefts, pros­e­cu­tor Jef­frey Brooker said.

Chavez resigned from the WPD three days after his arrest in Feb­ru­ary. It’s sus­pected the prop­erty was taken dur­ing a six-month period last year.

The judge opted to sen­tence the defen­dants based on the aggra­vated nature of the offenses, Brooker said.

Nei­ther defen­dant had any crim­i­nal record but “on the other hand” had abused their posi­tions of trust, Brooker said.

Chavez pleaded guilty to three sep­a­rate charges of grand theft and Tovar pleaded guilty to one felony charge of bur­glary. Both defen­dants entered their pleas Sept. 16, which was the day Chavez sur­ren­dered him­self to authorities.

Tovar chose to wait until sen­tenc­ing Fri­day before turn­ing him­self in, Brooker said.

Other equip­ment taken was a pro­tec­tive police vest, Taser car­tridges and weapons that included a .22 cal­iber rifle and a .40 cal­iber Glock semi-automatic pis­tol, accord­ing to a pro­ba­tion report.

The report also detailed the theft of a cell phone from a cit­i­zen Chavez had arrested and fire­works taken from an evi­dence locker.

Most of the prop­erty was recov­ered but some of it, like the breath­ing appa­ra­tus fire­fight­ers use, had been sold on eBay, Brooker said.

The West­mor­land Fire Depart­ment took a loss of about $28,000 as the four pieces of breath­ing equip­ment were val­ued at $7,000 each, Brooker said.

Staff Writer Sil­vio J. Panta can be reached at 760 – 337-3442 or at spanta@ivpressonline.com

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

abc30HD, KFSN-TV Fresno, CA, abclocal.go.com
BYLINE: Son­taya Rose
Link to Arti­cle
One Video

Fresno, CA

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — Fresno Police have spent the sum­mer seiz­ing a record num­ber of guns. The past three months, police have taken in almost 250 guns as evi­dence. The num­bers are so high, police have run out of stor­age space in the department’s prop­erty room.

Wednes­day night, Fresno Police took 11 guns off the streets, includ­ing an SKS assault gun with a thirty round mag­a­zine. Police are find­ing quite a few peo­ple just dri­ving around town are crim­i­nals armed with guns.

Wednes­day night two offi­cers who stopped in to use the restroom at the Shell sta­tion on Olive and Cedar didn’t end up get­ting much of a break. Inside the store they got a tip about a cus­tomer armed. After a brief scuf­fle in the door­way, police say they found a loaded hand­gun on Devaughn Lenor. Police say, these types of sce­nar­ios have become the norm.

Chief Jerry Dyer said, “Some of the firearms are brought in from out of state and we also know that a lot of these firearms are stolen in home burglaries.”

On a week­day night in the city of Fresno, these are the find­ings of Fresno Police. One thou­sand rounds of ammu­ni­tion booked into evi­dence, nearly all of it from his home in South­east Fresno.

Police also found two bal­lis­tic vests stolen from Fresno County Pro­ba­tion. Arrested were Jason Men­doza and Adam Duenas.

The prop­erty on dis­play doesn’t even include a gun police found that they believe was used in a murder.

Sergeant Kirk Pool runs the evi­dence and prop­erty room at the police depart­ment; he says cur­rently it’s packed with guns.

Pool said, “It’s far more than what we are used to and we have the stor­age capac­ity for so it’s tak­ing a lot more man hours to process it and we’re hav­ing to be a lot more cre­ative in find­ing new space to store firearms.”

Last Fri­day, Fresno Police Offi­cers took in a whop­ping 42 guns in a sin­gle day, includ­ing 36 from a chop shop bust that stretched all the way to Chowchilla.

Police Chief Jerry Dyer says he’s not sure why offi­cers are recov­er­ing more firearms, but he has a few ideas.

“It could be because the intel­li­gence infor­ma­tion that we are receiv­ing is bet­ter, that our proac­tive efforts are more focused or it could be that were just see­ing more peo­ple out there on the streets that are arm­ing them­selves with guns,” said Chief Dyer. “And the peo­ple that are arm­ing them­selves with guns are the gang members.”

Shoot­ings are up city­wide 8% over last year. The puz­zling part is that homi­cides are down 22% and over­all vio­lent crime is down 4%. 

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

NBC Bay Area, nbcbayarea.com
BYLINE: Lori Preuitt
Link to Article

Santa Clara, CA

A 1979 homi­cide case was left open until now.

DNA hits link Rich­mond man to 1979 homi­cide in San Jose. Getty Images

The Santa Clara County Dis­trict Attorney’s office announced the arrest of a man they say is respon­si­ble for the death of a San Jose woman 31 years ago.

Rachel Mon­crief was killed in July, 1979. Her body was found at a mobile home deal­er­ship in Santa Clara.

Now, inves­ti­ga­tors say a DNA hit from blood on her pants links 61-year-old David Dixon to the crime.

Dixon was arrested Wednes­day and will be charged with one count of mur­der, accord­ing to the DA’s office.

Inves­ti­ga­tors said they say a sec­ond DNA hit that linked both Dixon and Moncrief’s DNA to a mar­i­juana cig­a­rette found near her body.

Inves­ti­ga­tors credit the Santa Clara Police Depart­ment and the Dis­trict Attorney’s Cold Case Unit for solv­ing the case.

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