IAPE Evidence Blog

The Palm Beach Post, palmbeachpost.com
BYLINE: Eliot Klein­berg, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Link to Article

Boyn­ton Beach, FL

Evi­dence Detec­tive Daniel Cline looks for an item inside the evi­dence room at the Boyn­ton Beach Police Depart­ment Fri­day Feb. 3, 2012. Richard Graulich/Palm Beach Post

BOYNTON BEACH — A recent audit of the police evi­dence unit was unable to account for 40 items, chief Matt Imm­ler said last week .

By Thurs­day, Imm­ler said, fewer than 11 items remained unac­counted for.

He said none were crit­i­cal to open cases, where a defense lawyer might employ a “chain of cus­tody” challenge.

Imm­ler said this is the first such inci­dent since he became chief in 2005.

He said the items never were miss­ing; they just couldn’t be found in an evi­dence unit so crowded that bins are stacked on top of each other or slip behind each other on shelves.

“We are com­pletely out of space,” Imm­ler said. “That’s even with destroy­ing as much evi­dence and prop­erty as we’re allowed to every month. The inflow of prop­erty over­takes the outflow. ”

Immler’s solu­tion is one he’s pushed for years: a new police station.

The depart­ment, one of Palm Beach County’s largest, oper­ates in a wing of city hall that totals 18,000 square feet. A 2009 study said it needs 60,000 to 80,000.

All the miss­ing items, Imm­ler said, were from closed cases or cases police likely will not pur­sue. One item dated to 1983, accord­ing to memos obtained by the Post.

While some space for evi­dence recently opened up in a garage and in parts of city hall, it’s either not cli­mate con­trolled or not secure, Imm­ler said.

Amid the city’s con­tin­u­ing bud­get woes, Imm­ler had laid off two civil­ian evi­dence cus­to­di­ans, and employed offi­cers he’d taken off the street for rea­sons such as injury or discipline.

“That’s when we began to notice there was a prob­lem,” Imm­ler said.

He said he added six inspec­tions and ran­dom monthly checks.

By then, Imm­ler had reas­signed two road offi­cers to the evi­dence unit; they helped in the Decem­ber audit that turned up the discrepancy.

Imm­ler has com­pen­sated by tak­ing two other offi­cers off inter­a­gency task forces, one on gangs and one on drugs.

“I didn’t want to do that, because I believe in those task forces,” Imm­ler said. “But at this point, I don’t have any choice.”

Evi­dence Detec­tive Daniel Cline looks for an item inside the evi­dence room at the Boyn­ton Beach Police Depart­ment Fri­day Feb. 3, 2012. Richard Graulich/Palm Beach Post
 
 
 
 
 

Evi­dence Detec­tive Daniel Cline stands next to shelves stocked to the ceil­ing inside the evi­dence room at the Boyn­ton Beach Police Depart­ment Fri­day Feb. 3, 2012. Richard Graulich/Palm Beach Post
 
 
 

Items are stacked inside the evi­dence room at the Boyn­ton Beach Police Depart­ment Fri­day Feb. 3, 2012. Richard Graulich/Palm Beach Post
 
 
 
 
 
 

Evi­dence con­tain­ers are stacked inside the evi­dence room at the Boyn­ton Beach Police Depart­ment Fri­day Feb. 3, 2012. Richard Graulich/Palm Beach Post
 
 
 
 
 

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

The Sara­sota Herald-Tribune, heraldtribune.com
BYLINE: Tom Lyons
Link to Article

Sara­sota, FL

A local attor­ney called last week to say he had a news­wor­thy report in hand, but didn’t want to say where he got it, and wanted to remain name­less when he passed it to me.

It was about evi­dence stor­age issues at the new Sara­sota Police head­quar­ters, the kind of thing that might cause chain-of-custody prob­lems for pros­e­cu­tors han­dling crim­i­nal cases.

Local crim­i­nal defense attor­neys could be all over it, given the chance. And they were all about to get that chance, because the report was being handed to some of them, too, the attor­ney said.

Think­ing I was about to be handed some­thing that had some­how been kept under wraps until it was smug­gled out of the bow­els of the city bureau­cracy, I had to chuckle when I got my first look at it.

It was a per­fectly ordi­nary audit report that had been com­pleted in May 2011.

“You can obtain copies of this report by con­tact­ing us at Office of the City Audi­tor and Clerk,” it said on page two, fol­lowed by the address and phone num­ber for Sara­sota City Hall.

And, actu­ally, you need not bother. You can read it online at the city’s web­site. Just look up recent inter­nal audits and click on the “Sara­sota Police Depart­ment Prop­erty Evi­dence” audit, also known as #EX 11 – 01.

It won’t be as much fun doing it that way, with­out the intrigue and hype. But the report, signed by Sarasota’s inter­nal audit man­ager Heather Riti and City Clerk Pam Nadalini, says after evi­dence and other tagged-and-stored, investigation-related prop­erty was moved to the new police head­quar­ters build­ing late in 2010, at least three pack­ages were dis­cov­ered to be lost or at least tem­porar­ily misplaced.

One is a box con­tain­ing a few small pieces of crack cocaine. Another holds a hand­gun that was sched­uled for destruc­tion and may have been, though the records don’t make that clear. And the last is listed as “$14.49 in change.”

Not too excit­ing so far.

But, as the report added in pos­i­tive sound­ing government-speak, “oppor­tu­ni­ties exist to enhance phys­i­cal secu­rity” of the evi­dence stor­age rooms. The list of flaws there is where crim­i­nal defense lawyers will be shop­ping for things that could worry a jury.

For instance, key­pad entry to one evi­dence stor­age room is less than ideal, it says, because “all offi­cers know the key­pad com­bi­na­tion” even though the room “should not be acces­si­ble to any­one except Prop­erty and Evi­dence Unit staff.”

Alarms that went off at the old build­ing when any­one came and went through an evidence-room door weren’t in place in the new build­ing, the audit says.

And though the sys­tem can use bio­met­ric iden­ti­fi­ca­tion to record which Prop­erty and Evi­dence staff mem­bers come in and out, and when, those staff mem­bers were also given keys that can be used instead. The keys don’t leave any record of who came in, the audit says.

That’s all kind of amaz­ing, says defense attor­ney Derek Byrd, pres­i­dent of the Sara­sota County Bar Association.

“There isn’t a prop­erty depart­ment in the world that allows just any cop to come and go,” Byrd says, because of the poten­tial for evi­dence tampering.

Pills can be replaced, incon­ve­nient bio­log­i­cal evi­dence could be switched or destroyed.

“It’s going to cre­ate issues because that’s not the way it’s always been done,” Byrd says.

But just as amaz­ing, Byrd said, is that this audit was fin­ished in May of last year and, even if qui­etly posted at City Hall at the time, defense attor­neys have not known about it.

On Mon­day, which was a hol­i­day, I couldn’t reach any­one who could tell me whether the State Attorney’s Office was ever told about the inter­nal audit. Police Chief Michael Hol­loway got a copy, since it was his depart­ment that requested the audit, accord­ing to a list of recip­i­ents in my copy. But I was unable to reach him on Mon­day to ask who else was informed.

Rules of evi­dence require that pros­e­cu­tors tell defense teams about poten­tial evi­dence prob­lems “if they knew about it,” Byrd said.

If they weren’t told about the audit, he said, the ques­tion is: Why not?

Tom Lyons can be con­tacted at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com or (941) 361‑4964.

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

www.floridatoday.com, floridatoday.com
BYLINE:
Link to Arti­cle
One Video

Cop’s depar­ture after alleged drug thefts causes stir in
Dec. 1, 2011

West Mel­bourne, FL

Retiree accused of lift­ing drugs but never charged

Sur­veil­lance video: Retired West Mel­bourne cop in …: In this sur­veil­lance video, retired West Mel­bourne Police Com­man­der Charles Schrum is seen tak­ing pre­scrip­tion drugs with­out per­mis­sion from the Police Dep­tart­ment prop­erty and evi­dence room in June 2009. Pro­vided, posted Nov. 30, 2011 FOR FLORIDA TODAY

WEST MELBOURNE — By all pub­lic accounts at the time, for­mer West Mel­bourne police com­man­der Charles Schrum retired from the city on a med­ical dis­abil­ity and his posi­tion was elim­i­nated among more than a dozen cuts and lay­offs in 2009.

Few peo­ple knew that the 20-year police depart­ment vet­eran had been wit­nessed by fel­low police offi­cers tak­ing pre­scrip­tion drugs from the department’s evi­dence room twice in a three-day period, a report shows.

Pub­lic records, released Wednes­day as a result of a FLORIDA TODAY request, indi­cate Schrum admit­ted to con­sum­ing the drugs because he was suf­fer­ing from an addic­tion to pain pills. But Schrum was never arrested, never faced crim­i­nal charges and now receives a monthly pen­sion of $3,245.

West Mel­bourne Police Chief Brian Lock inves­ti­gated the alleged drug theft and reviewed it with top offi­cials at the State Attorney’s Office, who deter­mined the case couldn’t be prosecuted.

Within days of the inci­dents, Schrum applied for dis­abil­ity for unre­lated med­ical mat­ters. That was approved and he received dis­abil­ity ben­e­fits until his retire­ment was offi­cial in January.

But Lock didn’t tell West Mel­bourne City Coun­cil mem­bers — his direct super­vi­sors — and that has the well-respected police chief whose catch phrase has always been “I love my job” in hot water today.

“I think it’s out­ra­geous. I think we should expect more from our police chief,” said West Mel­bourne Coun­cil­man Michael Hazlett, who is call­ing on Lock to resign and for a fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. Hazlett and the chief have had an ongo­ing bat­tle over Hazlett’s attempt to cut the department’s budget.

“Our city has made so many won­der­ful strides. And I have to talk to peo­ple about our old­est employee in the city mak­ing bad judg­ments. It’s really disturbing.”

FLORIDA TODAY couldn’t reach Schrum for com­ment. But Lock, con­tacted Wednes­day, said he stands by his decision.

“I had a cri­sis on my hand. I was wear­ing my HR hat and didn’t know what I was deal­ing with. I was try­ing to do the right thing as an employer,” he said.

Con­cerns about Schrum resur­faced about two weeks ago when an anony­mous let­ter alleg­ing the thefts was sent to Hazlett’s Palm Bay business.

Hazlett for­warded the let­ter to City Man­ager Scott Mor­gan and City Attor­ney Jim Wil­son to be inves­ti­gated. Mor­gan asked Lock about the mat­ter. Lock con­firmed that Schrum had admit­ted to tak­ing drugs from the evi­dence room.

City offi­cials also con­tacted the Florida Depart­ment of Law Enforce­ment. FDLE reviewed the reports pro­vided from city offi­cials, but is not con­duct­ing a fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion, spokes­woman Susie Mur­phy said.

“We felt it had already been inves­ti­gated,” she said, refer­ring to Lock and Assis­tant Police Chief Mike Czernik’s review of the mat­ter immediately.

Evi­dence on tape

Accord­ing to the police report gen­er­ated at the time, Sup­port Ser­vice & Police Tech­nol­ogy Direc­tor Mike Helms was mak­ing rou­tine checks of the department’s sur­veil­lance cam­eras on June 18, 2009, when he noticed the cam­era in the evi­dence room was point­ing toward the ceiling.

Helms reviewed older seg­ments and found video of Schrum enter­ing the evi­dence room the pre­vi­ous morn­ing, putting his hand over the cam­era and point­ing it toward the ceil­ing. The tape also shows Schrum leav­ing the room after putting some­thing in his pocket.

After review­ing the tapes, Czernik entered the evi­dence room with another detec­tive on June 19, 2009, and found evi­dence bags appeared to have been moved.

About an hour later, Schrum again entered the evi­dence room, this time as the video was being viewed by Czernik and Helms. Schrum, accord­ing to the inves­tiga­tive reports, moved some items around, left momen­tar­ily and returned with a cart, which he loaded with pre­scrip­tion drugs.

Schrum, the report says, was tak­ing the cart of drugs down the hall to a bath­room when Czernik stopped him and ordered him to return the drugs. Accord­ing to the reports, Schrum admit­ted to Helms and later Lock that he took the drugs and he “needed help.”

Inci­dent reports

Lock said he con­tacted the State Attorney’s Office by phone shortly after the inci­dents. But the first doc­u­mented con­tact between Lock and the State Attorney’s Office was a con­fi­den­tial report filed Sept. 16.

That memo from Lock to Assis­tant State Attor­ney Wayne Holmes indi­cates Lock and Helms took Schrum to Cir­cles of Care. Lock wrote that Schrum esti­mated he had taken more than 60 pills that week.

Holmes and city offi­cials said the alleged drug theft did not impact any crim­i­nal cases. All of the drugs thought to be taken by Schrum were from peo­ple who had died nat­u­rally, but unat­tended by a doc­tor. Police, Holmes said, often are called to a scene and col­lect med­ica­tions as a part of their investigation.

Holmes said Wednes­day there were sev­eral issues that pre­vented the case from being pros­e­cuted suc­cess­fully. Among them was the fact Schrum was admit­ting the theft to his bosses and case law pre­vents that from being used against a pub­lic employee in a crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. “The bot­tom line is you only have sus­pi­cion, but for his com­pelled state­ments, which you can’t use,” Holmes said.

In most cases, law enforce­ment agen­cies con­duct their own inves­ti­ga­tions when employ­ees are sus­pected of com­mit­ting a crime, Holmes said. “Twenty-twenty hind­sight polit­i­cally, he prob­a­bly should have asked for some other agency to look into it, dot­ted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s,” Holmes said. “And you don’t have issues like this com­ing up two years after the fact.”

City lead­ers ques­tion, how­ever, why more was not done administratively.Lock said he did not tell city offi­cials about the case because West Mel­bourne was going through a “tumul­tuous” time with an out­go­ing city man­ager. And Lock claims, the sit­u­a­tion with Schrum had been “stabilized.”

Schrum went to a reha­bil­i­ta­tion facil­ity out of state, Lock said. Lock claims the city could not have had a ter­mi­na­tion hear­ing dur­ing that time and would have been vio­lat­ing Schrum’s due process to fire him with­out one. “We would be defend­ing a law­suit now that he would win,” he said.

Con­tact Cer­venka at 321 – 242-3632 or scervenka@floridatoday.com.

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