IAPE Evidence Blog

www.policeone.com, Telegram & Gazette
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South­bridge, MA

Some items in over­flow­ing evi­dence rooms go back as far as 15 years

SOUTHBRIDGE, Mass. — A small hot tub and a set of brass knuckle with three knives stick­ing out of it are among unusual items that have accu­mu­lated in the South­bridge Police Department.

They are exam­ples of a com­mon house­keep­ing issue for police depart­ments — the need for more room for evi­dence and recov­ered items.

Author­i­ties in West­boro are going through inven­tory, police Lt. Robert T. Fryer said. They have guns and old tele­vi­sions, com­put­ers and dif­fer­ent things that are of no par­tic­u­lar inter­est, he said.

“We’re going through our old cases — things that are 10, 12, 15 years old — and mak­ing sure that the cases are not active and dis­pos­ing of what we can to make more room,” Lt. Fryer said.

West­boro has a small room for valu­ables such as guns and drugs. Other items are kept in cold stor­age in a 12– by 25-foot space off the garage.

Bicy­cles and other items are in yet another area — a stor­age con­tainer at the West­boro Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works. Many bikes were auc­tioned, the lieu­tenant said.

Sut­ton Police Chief Den­nis J. Towle said his staff met last week about the same problem.

Chief Towle said his pre­de­ces­sor years ago bought a stor­age con­tainer for items. That’s now full.

Sut­ton police have also par­ti­tioned part of their garage for evidence.

“We have an exten­sive amount of jew­elry from a spe­cific case that we’re wait­ing to get a dis­po­si­tion on,” Chief Towle said. “At that point we’ll try to find who the own­ers are. It’s unlikely we ever will find them.”

The chief clas­si­fied some of the jew­elry as “real, real unique stuff.” A pocket watch has an esti­mated value of $3,000 to $5,000.

“Some­body has to be miss­ing it, whether or not (the owner is) still with us,” Chief Towle said.

The Auburn Police Department’s 30-square-foot evi­dence room prob­a­bly has about 500 items and is nearly out of space, Chief Andrew J. Sluckis said. The items are “run of the mill” guns and drug evi­dence, such as things used to cul­ti­vate marijuana.

“A lot of it has to do with either open cases that we’re wait­ing to come up for trial, or cases where we have to hold on to the evi­dence because the per­son is in default and has never appeared in court,” he said.

In South­bridge, uniden­ti­fi­able head­stones are among other unusual items, Chief Daniel R. Charette said.

South­bridge police have a plas­tic tub con­tain­ing about 30 or 40 swords. “We must have 300 or 400 firearms,” he said.

The depart­ment has checked with the town’s lawyer to see what it can do with this prop­erty, the chief said.

“It would seem pretty sim­ple on the sur­face,” Chief Charette said. “You have the recov­ered prop­erty from a break­ing and enter­ing. You know whose it is, you give it back to them.”

But the prob­lem is that some­times the court case has been dis­posed of and the insur­ance com­pany has paid for the loss. The insurer usu­ally doesn’t want the item back so it sits with police, Chief Charette said.

An auc­tion is a pos­si­bil­ity, but when items are declared sur­plus the town gets to keep the por­tion of money from the auction.

“My hope with that is the money stays within the police depart­ment,” he said with a laugh.

South­bridge police Sgt. Jose A. Din­gui recently met with Northboro-based Vil­lage Vault, a firearms stor­age facil­ity that in some cases will give the police 60 per­cent of the pro­ceeds from a gun sale.

For the most part Vil­lage Vault stores guns that were taken by police in restraining-orders cases, license revo­ca­tions or were aban­doned or donated in instances when a gun-owner died and the fam­ily didn’t want the weapon.

About five years ago, an Inter­net com­pany called propertyroom.com emerged, and it has been help­ful for depart­ments, said retired Shrews­bury Police Chief A. Wayne Samp­son, who is the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Mass­a­chu­setts Chiefs of Police Association.

The com­pany logs the items, takes pic­tures and posts them on the Internet.

Chief Samp­son said this is a bet­ter pro­gram because the items are on the Inter­net per­ma­nently, and as mate­ri­als are sold the com­pany sends a check to a community.

State law allows “prop­erty which has been stolen, lost, aban­doned or taken from a per­son under arrest” to be dis­posed of.

Just to be thor­ough, the chief’s asso­ci­a­tion filed leg­is­la­tion to allow auc­tion­ing prop­erty on the Inter­net, Chief Samp­son said. The bill passed in April.

In the old days, an offi­cer would spend weeks or months going through prop­erty, try­ing to track down own­ers through let­ters, Chief Samp­son said.

The offi­cer would have to make sure the case was cleared before the depart­ment hired an auc­tion­eer, which requires a news­pa­per advertisement.

“We would have to bring in extra help on the day of the auc­tion to be there and process it,” Chief Samp­son said.

In most cases, after pay­ing for the pub­lic auc­tion, the depart­ment prob­a­bly would lose money to get rid of the prop­erty, he said.

How­ever, some items still find their way home the old-fashioned way.

Seven days ago in West Brook­field, a West Spring­field woman lost a dia­mond ring. She told a reporter it was a fam­ily heir­loom that fell out of her purse as she got out of her car for a Valentine’s Day din­ner with her hus­band at Salem Cross Inn.

Jean Smith of Wilbra­ham found it and turned it over to staff at the inn, who in turn gave the ring to police.

By Wednes­day it was in the right­ful owner’s hands.

Sgt. Charles H. Laperle, who han­dled the case, said the owner was lucky to have hon­est peo­ple turn in the ring.

West Brook­field police cer­tainly don’t need any more unclaimed items, which are kept in var­i­ous loca­tions in the department.

The ring’s owner did not want her name men­tioned, but she said she was “thrilled and relieved” and “for­ever grate­ful” to Ms. Smith.

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

TELEGRAM & GAZETTE (Mass­a­chu­setts)
BYLINE: Brian Lee, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

South­bridge, MA

Some items in over­flow­ing evi­dence rooms go back as far as 15 years

A small hot tub and a set of brass knuckle with three knives stick­ing out of it are among unusual items that have accu­mu­lated in the South­bridge Police Department.

They are exam­ples of a com­mon house­keep­ing issue for police depart­ments — the need for more room for evi­dence and recov­ered items.

Author­i­ties in West­boro are going through inven­tory, police Lt. Robert T. Fryer said. They have guns and old tele­vi­sions, com­put­ers and dif­fer­ent things that are of no par­tic­u­lar inter­est, he said.

“We’re going through our old cases — things that are 10, 12, 15 years old — and mak­ing sure that the cases are not active and dis­pos­ing of what we can to make more room,” Lt. Fryer said.

West­boro has a small room for valu­ables such as guns and drugs. Other items are kept in cold stor­age in a 12– by 25-foot space off the garage.

Bicy­cles and other items are in yet another area — a stor­age con­tainer at the West­boro Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works.

Many bikes were auc­tioned, the lieu­tenant said.

Sut­ton Police Chief Den­nis J. Towle said his staff met last week about the same problem.

Chief Towle said his pre­de­ces­sor years ago bought a stor­age con­tainer for items. That’s now full.

Sut­ton police have also par­ti­tioned part of their garage for evidence.

“We have an exten­sive amount of jew­elry from a spe­cific case that we’re wait­ing to get a dis­po­si­tion on,” Chief Towle said. “At that point we’ll try to find who the own­ers are. It’s unlikely we ever will find them.”

The chief clas­si­fied some of the jew­elry as “real, real unique stuff.” A pocket watch has an esti­mated value of $3,000 to $5,000.

“Some­body has to be miss­ing it, whether or not (the owner is) still with us,” Chief Towle said.

The Auburn Police Department’s 30-square-foot evi­dence room prob­a­bly has about 500 items and is nearly out of space, Chief Andrew J. Sluckis said. The items are “run of the mill” guns and drug evi­dence, such as things used to cul­ti­vate marijuana.

“A lot of it has to do with either open cases that we’re wait­ing to come up for trial, or cases where we have to hold on to the evi­dence because the per­son is in default and has never appeared in court,” he said.

In South­bridge, uniden­ti­fi­able head­stones are among other unusual items, Chief Daniel R. Charette said.

South­bridge police have a plas­tic tub con­tain­ing about 30 or 40 swords. “We must have 300 or 400 firearms,” he said.

The depart­ment has checked with the town’s lawyer to see what it can do with this prop­erty, the chief said.

“It would seem pretty sim­ple on the sur­face,” Chief Charette said. “You have the recov­ered prop­erty from a break­ing and enter­ing. You know whose it is, you give it back to them.”

But the prob­lem is that some­times the court case has been dis­posed of and the insur­ance com­pany has paid for the loss. The insurer usu­ally doesn’t want the item back so it sits with police, Chief Charette said.

An auc­tion is a pos­si­bil­ity, but when items are declared sur­plus the town gets to keep the por­tion of money from the auction.

“My hope with that is the money stays within the police depart­ment,” he said with a laugh.

South­bridge police Sgt. Jose A. Din­gui recently met with Northboro-based Vil­lage Vault, a firearms stor­age facil­ity that in some cases will give the police 60 per­cent of the pro­ceeds from a gun sale.

For the most part Vil­lage Vault stores guns that were taken by police in restraining-orders cases, license revo­ca­tions or were aban­doned or donated in instances when a gun-owner died and the fam­ily didn’t want the weapon.

About five years ago, an Inter­net com­pany called propertyroom.com emerged, and it has been help­ful for depart­ments, said retired Shrews­bury Police Chief A. Wayne Samp­son, who is the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Mass­a­chu­setts Chiefs of Police Association.

The com­pany logs the items, takes pic­tures and posts them on the Internet.

Chief Samp­son said this is a bet­ter pro­gram because the items are on the Inter­net per­ma­nently, and as mate­ri­als are sold the com­pany sends a check to a community.

State law allows “prop­erty which has been stolen, lost, aban­doned or taken from a per­son under arrest” to be dis­posed of.

Just to be thor­ough, the chief’s asso­ci­a­tion filed leg­is­la­tion to allow auc­tion­ing prop­erty on the Inter­net, Chief Samp­son said. The bill passed in April.

In the old days, an offi­cer would spend weeks or months going through prop­erty, try­ing to track down own­ers through let­ters, Chief Samp­son said.

The offi­cer would have to make sure the case was cleared before the depart­ment hired an auc­tion­eer, which requires a news­pa­per advertisement.

“We would have to bring in extra help on the day of the auc­tion to be there and process it,” Chief Samp­son said.

In most cases, after pay­ing for the pub­lic auc­tion, the depart­ment prob­a­bly would lose money to get rid of the prop­erty, he said.

How­ever, some items still find their way home the old-fashioned way.

Seven days ago in West Brook­field, a West Spring­field woman lost a dia­mond ring. She told a reporter it was a fam­ily heir­loom that fell out of her purse as she got out of her car for a Valentine’s Day din­ner with her hus­band at Salem Cross Inn.

Jean Smith of Wilbra­ham found it and turned it over to staff at the inn, who in turn gave the ring to police.

By Wednes­day it was in the right­ful owner’s hands.

Sgt. Charles H. Laperle, who han­dled the case, said the owner was lucky to have hon­est peo­ple turn in the ring.

West Brook­field police cer­tainly don’t need any more unclaimed items, which are kept in var­i­ous loca­tions in the department.

The ring’s owner did not want her name men­tioned, but she said she was “thrilled and relieved” and “for­ever grate­ful” to Ms. Smith.

Con­tact Brian Lee by e-mail at blee@telegram.com

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

www.enterprisenews.com
BYLINE: Mau­reen Boyle, ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
Link to Article

Brock­ton, MA

The state Appeals Court upheld the sus­pen­sion of a Com­mu­nity Col­lege police offi­cer who was ousted after prob­lems were uncov­ered about how that police department’s guns were handled.

Cam­pus Offi­cer David Bick­ford, who had been in charge of the department’s weapons armory, was put on leave in 2006 after a state police inves­ti­ga­tion into a miss­ing gun uncov­ered prob­lems with record-keeping.

A spokesman for the col­lege said the school has not yet been for­mally noti­fied of the rul­ing. Bick­ford is still offi­cially off the job.

Bick­ford, after learn­ing of the rul­ing Fri­day, said he was dis­ap­pointed with the deci­sion “but I’m not sur­prised.” He said he will con­fer with his attor­ney to see if he can appeal the deci­sion further.

Bick­ford said the mat­ter was “blown out of pro­por­tion” and he would elab­o­rate at a later time.

State police launched its inves­ti­ga­tion in 2006 when Bick­ford returned to work after a three-month dis­abil­ity leave and reported a pis­tol and mag­a­zine clips were miss­ing from his locker. The gun was never recov­ered, but the court noted a state police inves­ti­ga­tion into the mat­ter “did reveal a host of other prob­lems with Bickford’s per­for­mance as armorer.”

The inves­ti­ga­tion found, accord­ing to the court, that Bickford:

Took a per­sonal firearm from one of the cam­pus sergeant’s desk drawer in 2000 to “secure it” but never told her then for­got about it.

At least two depart­ment firearms were missing.

He lost his firearms log book and didn’t find it for at least three years.

He stopped keep­ing a firearms log when the log book was missing.

The cam­pus police offi­cers are spe­cial state police offi­cers, get­ting their arrest pow­ers through the state police.

Mau­reen Boyle can be reached at mboyle@enterprisenews.com.

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