IAPE Evidence Blog

Idaho Falls Post Reg­is­ter (Idaho), Main Edi­tion
SECTION: A; Pg. A1
BYLINE: By PHIL DAVIDSON

Idaho Falls, ID

Though the first-ever audit of the Police Department’s evi­dence room was broad in scope, much of it focused on the pro­ce­dural holes exploited by for­mer City Pros­e­cu­tor Kim­ball Mason. 

The audit, con­ducted by for­mer San Jose (Calif.) Deputy Police Chief Dan Bul­lock, con­cluded Mason alone was respon­si­ble for “unfor­giv­able crim­i­nal acts” but included rec­om­men­da­tions on how to stave off poten­tial abuses of the evidence-handling system.

Mason, who served as the city’s pros­e­cu­tor for 12 years, has been locked up since May 30 after admit­ting to two counts of grand theft for tak­ing guns from the IFPD’s prop­erty room and keep­ing them for his per­sonal use. He was charged with seven addi­tional counts last week after a state inves­ti­ga­tion revealed some of the guns he took from evi­dence cus­to­di­ans and claimed to destroy had turned up at his Idaho Falls home.

Since 2001, Mason pre­sented evi­dence cus­to­di­ans with at least 51 court orders –some legit­i­mate, some bogus — to release guns to him.

The Idaho Attor­ney General’s Office alleges he was repro­duc­ing judges’ sig­na­tures on some of the orders with­out the judge’s approval. But that type of anomy is unlikely to reoc­cur given the new safe­guards to pro­tect against crooks.

Idaho Falls Police Chief J. Kent Livsey, who told Bul­lock that prob­lems with the department’s evi­dence room prior to the Mason case were not on his “radar screen,” said he embraces the changes.

“We’re doing a lot of adjust­ments for the actions of one guy,” he said.

Some of the steps include:

- Every court order pre­sented to the department’s evi­dence cus­to­dian will be reviewed by a supe­rior offi­cer. If ques­tions are raised, Livsey said, the order will be taken to Bon­neville County Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney Dane Watkins Jr., who will ask the court for a judi­cial review.

- The evi­dence cus­to­dian will receive addi­tional train­ing on prop­erty man­age­ment and be cer­ti­fied by the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence. The sergeant in charge of the evi­dence room will also get more training.

- Guns the depart­ment decides to destroy will be taken to Moun­tain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, where an agent from the Fed­eral Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo­sives will super­vise their dis­man­tling. Pros­e­cu­tors will no longer be able to destroy guns, as Mason said he rou­tinely did.

Cops and Courts reporter Phil David­son can be reached at 542‑6750.

Quotable

Quote from Dan Bul­lock, an evi­dence expert and for­mer chief of police:

“It is unfath­omable to me how the laws of Idaho and the pro­ce­dures of the City of Idaho Falls could per­mit one per­son to remove items from the police prop­erty room and to then sell or trade those items for the ben­e­fit of that per­son or their office oper­a­tion with­out the review and approval of a higher authority.”

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

Idaho Falls Post Reg­is­ter (Idaho), Main Edi­tion
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A1
BYLINE: By PHIL DAVIDSON

Idaho Falls, ID

IFPD evi­dence room is praised but must improve gun disposal

An audi­tor gave a good review even though four times too many firearms are cur­rently in storage.

Nearly 600 guns are stored in the Idaho Falls Police Department’s evi­dence room — four times the num­ber of firearms a law enforce­ment agency of its size should have at any given time.

This lack of purg­ing is one of the most press­ing prob­lems fac­ing the department’s prop­erty unit, accord­ing to a recently con­ducted per­for­mance audit. 

The audit also revealed, how­ever, that the depart­ment has met most stan­dards in prop­erty and evi­dence operations.

Dan Bul­lock, a for­mer deputy police chief in San Jose, Calif., con­ducted the audit over three days in early August. Chief J. Kent Livsey called for the $6,000 review in response to for­mer City Pros­e­cu­tor Kim­ball Mason’s con­vic­tions for steal­ing guns from the evi­dence room.

It’s the first time the police department’s evidence-handling pro­ce­dures have been scru­ti­nized, either inter­nally or externally.

Mason, who pleaded guilty to two counts of grand theft for guns he took and faces seven addi­tional charges, did not walk into the prop­erty room and lift the guns, per se.

Rather, he pre­sented evi­dence cus­to­di­ans with court orders — some legit­i­mate, some bogus in the court’s eyes — and con­vinced them to give him the guns.

After review­ing 41 aspects of the department’s evi­dence pro­ce­dures, Bul­lock gave the IFPD an over­all rat­ing of “Meets Stan­dard (minus),” which “should not be viewed as ‘below aver­age,’ ” he wrote, “but, instead, should be viewed as a laud­able achieve­ment, espe­cially for a prop­erty unit that has not been pre­vi­ously audited.”

Bul­lock rated the IFPD on par with the top one-third of law enforce­ment agen­cies in Cal­i­for­nia, which is rec­og­nized as the lead­ing state in the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of prop­erty rooms.

“We’re really proud of this,” Livsey said.

The strength of the unit, Bul­lock said, is Prop­erty Office Man­ager Zuella Nel­son, who’s been run­ning the prop­erty room for nearly three years.

But his praise also uncov­ered some of the department’s shortcomings.

“Detec­tive Nel­son has done a com­mend­able job in the prop­erty room in spite of lim­ited train­ing, inad­e­quate staffing, untrained super­vi­sion and inad­e­quate facil­i­ties and equip­ment,” he wrote.

Nel­son attended a prop­erty man­age­ment train­ing ses­sion in Boise a cou­ple of years ago, but she’s not cer­ti­fied by the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence, which Bul­lock rec­om­mended. Livsey said Nel­son will attend the train­ing in 2007.

Other prob­lems Bul­lock noted include an incom­plete man­ual on evi­dence han­dling and infre­quent inter­nal reviews or audits. In response, Livsey said, the depart­ment will start con­duct­ing inter­nal audits every four months.

But the main prob­lem Bul­lock found was the abun­dance of guns in the prop­erty room, which he said is over­crowded, unsafe and not well-organized.

A depart­ment the size of Idaho Falls, which has about 90 sworn offi­cers, should hang on to only 100 to 150 guns at any given time, not the 590 Idaho Falls cur­rently has, Bul­lock wrote.

This back­log, he wrote, rep­re­sents years of neglect­ing to destroy or sell guns and fail­ing to con­vert them to depart­ment use.

Livsey said he’s assigned another offi­cer to help Nel­son get rid of the excess guns.

The chief also plans to pur­chase com­puter soft­ware that will cat­e­go­rize evi­dence in the prop­erty room using bar codes. Bul­lock rec­om­mended the soft­ware, which would enable Nel­son to track down a gun’s chain of com­mand in less than an hour, rather than the days it took to locate the guns Mason took. The soft­ware costs $35,000, how­ever, and its pur­chase will need City Coun­cil approval.

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

Idaho Falls Post Reg­is­ter (Idaho), Main Edi­tion
SECTION: A; Pg. A1
BYLINE: By PHIL DAVIDSON

Idaho Falls, ID

IFPD evi­dence room is praised but must improve gun disposal

An audi­tor gave a good review even though four times too many firearms are cur­rently in storage.

Nearly 600 guns are stored in the Idaho Falls Police Department’s evi­dence room — four times the num­ber of firearms a law enforce­ment agency of its size should have at any given time.

This lack of purg­ing is one of the most press­ing prob­lems fac­ing the department’s prop­erty unit, accord­ing to a recently con­ducted per­for­mance audit. 

The audit also revealed, how­ever, that the depart­ment has met most stan­dards in prop­erty and evi­dence operations.

Dan Bul­lock, a for­mer deputy police chief in San Jose, Calif., con­ducted the audit over three days in early August. Chief J. Kent Livsey called for the $6,000 review in response to for­mer City Pros­e­cu­tor Kim­ball Mason’s con­vic­tions for steal­ing guns from the evi­dence room.

It’s the first time the police department’s evidence-handling pro­ce­dures have been scru­ti­nized, either inter­nally or externally.

Mason, who pleaded guilty to two counts of grand theft for guns he took and faces seven addi­tional charges, did not walk into the prop­erty room and lift the guns, per se.

Rather, he pre­sented evi­dence cus­to­di­ans with court orders — some legit­i­mate, some bogus in the court’s eyes — and con­vinced them to give him the guns.

After review­ing 41 aspects of the department’s evi­dence pro­ce­dures, Bul­lock gave the IFPD an over­all rat­ing of “Meets Stan­dard (minus),” which “should not be viewed as below aver­age, ” he wrote, “but, instead, should be viewed as a laud­able achieve­ment, espe­cially for a prop­erty unit that has not been pre­vi­ously audited.”

Bul­lock rated the IFPD on par with the top one-third of law enforce­ment agen­cies in Cal­i­for­nia, which is rec­og­nized as the lead­ing state in the pro­fes­sion­al­ism of prop­erty rooms.

“We’re really proud of this,” Livsey said.

The strength of the unit, Bul­lock said, is Prop­erty Office Man­ager Zuella Nel­son, who’s been run­ning the prop­erty room for nearly three years.

But his praise also uncov­ered some of the department’s shortcomings.

“Detec­tive Nel­son has done a com­mend­able job in the prop­erty room in spite of lim­ited train­ing, inad­e­quate staffing, untrained super­vi­sion and inad­e­quate facil­i­ties and equip­ment,” he wrote.

Nel­son attended a prop­erty man­age­ment train­ing ses­sion in Boise a cou­ple of years ago, but she’s not cer­ti­fied by the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence, which Bul­lock rec­om­mended. Livsey said Nel­son will attend the train­ing in 2007.

Other prob­lems Bul­lock noted include an incom­plete man­ual on evi­dence han­dling and infre­quent inter­nal reviews or audits. In response, Livsey said, the depart­ment will start con­duct­ing inter­nal audits every four months.

But the main prob­lem Bul­lock found was the abun­dance of guns in the prop­erty room, which he said is over­crowded, unsafe and not well-organized.

A depart­ment the size of Idaho Falls, which has about 90 sworn offi­cers, should hang on to only 100 to 150 guns at any given time, not the 590 Idaho Falls cur­rently has, Bul­lock wrote.

This back­log, he wrote, rep­re­sents years of neglect­ing to destroy or sell guns and fail­ing to con­vert them to depart­ment use.

Livsey said he’s assigned another offi­cer to help Nel­son get rid of the excess guns.

The chief also plans to pur­chase com­puter soft­ware that will cat­e­go­rize evi­dence in the prop­erty room using bar codes. Bul­lock rec­om­mended the soft­ware, which would enable Nel­son to track down a gun’s chain of com­mand in less than an hour, rather than the days it took to locate the guns Mason took. The soft­ware costs $35,000, how­ever, and its pur­chase will need City Coun­cil approval.

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