IAPE Evidence Blog

Car­roll County Times, carrollcountytimes.com
BYLINE: Car­rie Ann Knauer, Times Staff Writer
Link to Article

West­min­ster, MD

A strange sur­prise: About 20 stolen lawn orna­ments were placed in Rebecca Hale’s West­min­ster yard overnight Sat­ur­day. SUBMITTED PHOTO

Rebecca Hale wants her neigh­bors to know she didn’t steal their lawn orna­ments, even if they did end up in her yard Sun­day morning.

Hale, who lives in the 200 block of Jan­ice Way in West­min­ster, said she and her boyfriend Jonathan Chell left the house at 10 p.m. Sat­ur­day to go to a friend’s house and play cards. When they returned home at 5 a.m. Sun­day, she almost couldn’t believe that she had pulled up to the right house.

“My dri­ve­way was lined with about 20 stolen lawn orna­ments,” the 36-year-old said. “I thought to myself ‘It looks like some­body is about to have a yard sale.’”

There was a black wooden dog on a bench on her front porch, and a metal swan block­ing the door. At the bot­tom of her steps were a fam­ily of bun­nies to the right, she said, and to the left some angels and gar­den gnomes. One of the more sig­nif­i­cant pieces was a small cow statue that she esti­mated weighed more than 100 pounds.

“It was crazy,” she said. “I had a mil­lion thoughts going through my mind.”

Think­ing it was pos­si­ble that the lawn dis­play could have been a prank by a friend, she waited for some­one to speak up and take credit for it. When no one came for­ward, she called the West­min­ster police at 3 p.m. to report the dis­play, which she assumed was of stolen goods.

A police offi­cer came to check it out Sun­day, she said, and on Mon­day, they sent a city dump truck to col­lect the goods and take them to the police department.

West­min­ster police Lt. Dou­glas John­ston said it appears most of the lawn dec­o­ra­tions were stolen from the sur­round­ing neigh­bor­hood. Eight of the objects have already been reclaimed by the own­ers, who had reported them as stolen, he said.

John­ston said the items are all intact, and have been placed in the department’s prop­erty room. Some peo­ple may not have noticed that they were stolen yet, he said, or may have noticed and not thought about report­ing the theft.

Any­one in West­min­ster who had a lawn dec­o­ra­tion stolen this week­end should con­tact the West­min­ster police at 410 – 848-4646 and ask for the prop­erty clerk, he said.

“We don’t get this occur­ring that often,” John­ston said. “More than likely, it was juveniles.”

Hale said she took lots of pho­tos of the lawn dis­play with her cell­phone, and said she won’t soon for­get the episode.

“It would be cool if every­one got their stuff back,” she said.

Reach staff writer Car­rie Ann Knauer at 410 – 857-7874 or carrie.knauer@carrollcountytimes.com.

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

KBOC16, wboc.com
BYLINE: Kye Par­sons
Link to Article

Worces­ter County, MD

Mar­tino Galeaz

BERLIN, Md.- Police in Worces­ter County said Tues­day that they used DNA evi­dence to con­nect a sus­pect to the bur­glary of a Berlin business.

Mar­tino Galeaz, 39, of Ocean City, is charged with second-, third– and fourth-degree bur­glary and theft over $1,000.

Detec­tives with the Worces­ter County said Galeaz’s arrest stemmed from a bur­glary that occurred ear­lier this year at Atlantic Aquat­ech on 10902 Ocean Gateway. 

Author­i­ties said an inves­ti­ga­tion revealed the sus­pect entered the busi­ness and stole a num­ber of items, includ­ing power tools. Through DNA analy­sis from evi­dence col­lected at the crime scene, inves­ti­ga­tors iden­ti­fied Galeaz as the suspect. 

After his arrest on the afore­men­tioned charges, Galeaz was locked up in the Worces­ter County Jail on a $10,000 bond.

Any­one with addi­tional infor­ma­tion about this case is asked to con­tact the WCBI at (410) 352‑3476, or Mary­land State Police at (410) 641‑3101.

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

Cap­i­tal Gazette Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Inc., HometownAnnapolis.com
BYLINE: JOE AIELLO, Staff Writer, Cap­i­tal Gazette Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
Link to Article

Prince George County, MD

One gun used in shoot­ing of fel­low officer

A Prince George’s County police offi­cer has been indicted by a Cir­cuit Court grand jury on 13 counts of mis­con­duct in office and theft.

Juan Diego Carter, 36, of Bowie and a 13-year vet­eran of the police depart­ment, had been assigned to a Mary­land State Police Gun Inter­dic­tion Task Force since 2007. In Novem­ber 2009 an audit revealed that 23 guns that had been seized by the task force were miss­ing and that Carter was the offi­cer who had recov­ered them.

The task force, which was headed by the Mary­land State Police, was a mul­ti­a­gency oper­a­tion that, accord­ing to the state police, seized more than 400 guns over the two years the task force was in operation.

It is alleged in charg­ing doc­u­ments that Carter never turned in the guns he had seized and instead sold them to peo­ple on the street. One of the guns that Carter allegedly sold was used in a 2009 botched rob­bery that led to the shoot­ing of an off-duty Prince George’s County police officer.

“I am sick­ened that an offi­cer on our police depart­ment could engage is such despi­ca­ble behav­ior. I applaud our Spe­cial Inves­tiga­tive Response Team for their relent­less work that led to the clo­sure of this crime. Bad cops have to be rooted out. They tar­nish the good work that is being done by the rest of our offi­cers,” said Police Chief Roberto L. Hylton.

Carter was taken into cus­tody and remanded to the County Cor­rec­tional Cen­ter on a $200,000 bond. Carter had his police pow­ers stripped and he has been sus­pended with­out pay.

The police depart­ment, which over the last three decades has had peri­ods of inter­nal issues involv­ing offi­cers and ille­gal activ­ity, went through sev­eral fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tions and in recent years had been seen in a more pos­i­tive light for changes made within the agency.

The indict­ment of Carter comes on the heels of an alleged cheat­ing scan­dal involv­ing police recruits and scores they received on tests. The inves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues into the train­ing acad­emy and the offi­cers have been cleared while the focus is on what police offi­cials say was a “lazy instruc­tor” and not the cadets.

A police offi­cial who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity said, “It’s sad that sto­ries like these make neg­a­tive head­lines for the police depart­ment, but the good work we do is sel­dom writ­ten about.”

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