IAPE Evidence Blog

The Boston Hearld, bostonherald.com
BYLINE: Matt Stout — matthew.stout@bostonherald.com
Link to Article

Attle­boro, MA

The police chief hunt­ing for the “rogue cop” who swiped drugs from Attle­boro Police Department’s evi­dence room said ran­dom drug test­ing could have pre­vented the theft — and he’s call­ing on Bea­con Hill to help make sure it doesn’t hap­pen again.

“The unions are going to step up and pres­sure them not to make any changes, but this is proof why we need it,” Attle­boro Police Chief Kyle Heag­ney said of ran­dom drug test­ing, which under state law must be col­lec­tively bar­gained into police union con­tracts — mean­ing that many cops across the state oper­ate free from fear of drug tests.

“I think we owe it to our cit­i­zens that police offi­cers are drug tested,” Heag­ney said. “I’m appalled that we can’t with­out bar­gain­ing, which makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.”

Heag­ney vowed to pun­ish those respon­si­ble when an August audit he ordered after tak­ing com­mand in Attle­boro revealed cocaine and other nar­cotics miss­ing, prompt­ing him to hire an out­side con­sul­tant to inves­ti­gate. Heag­ney would not say what pro­ce­dures existed before, but he said now just one offi­cer has the key to the evi­dence locker, and any­one enter­ing the room has to swipe an elec­tronic ID card. He plans to install video surveillance.

But Heag­ney said he’s run into a “code of silence” in his search for those respon­si­ble, and experts said inter­nal probes often stum­ble over poor evi­dence and resis­tant unions. Like Boston in 2006 and Dra­cut in 2003, when those depart­ments had drug theft scan­dals, there have been no arrests in Attle­boro yet.

Bills that would man­date ran­dom drug test­ing for pub­lic safety employ­ees — tak­ing it off the bar­gain­ing table — have come up sev­eral times on Bea­con Hill, where they faced union oppo­si­tion and lan­guished. Pub­lic Safety Com­mit­tee chair­men could not be reached yesterday.

Drug-testing is cur­rently on the table in ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions between Attle­boro and its police union. Attor­ney Leigh Panet­tiere, who rep­re­sents the Attle­boro police union and other law enforce­ment unions, said the union isn’t against testing.

“Police offi­cers don’t want to work in an envi­ron­ment where drug abuse is a prob­lem,” Panet­tiere said. But she said the union and the city have been unable to agree to terms on how offi­cers should be tested.

Panet­tiere declined to say what’s sep­a­rated the two sides, but Heag­ney said it’s simple — money.

“If they agree to ran­dom drug test­ing, they would want a sig­nif­i­cant raise,” Heag­ney said. “We have to bar­gain that and it becomes cost pro­hib­i­tive. If they’re not against it, then help us get the law changed.”

North­east­ern Uni­ver­sity crim­i­nol­o­gist Edith Flynn said unsolved drug-theft cases destroy pub­lic trust. “The issue of trust is vital,” she said. “Once that’s lost, it’s not only embar­rass­ing, it’s catastrophic.”

Alfred Dono­van, head of APD Man­age­ment whom the depart­ment hired to over­see its inves­ti­ga­tion, said none of the drugs miss­ing in Attle­boro were linked to open cases, mean­ing police there prob­a­bly aren’t see­ing cases overturned.

In Dra­cut, where $80,000 worth of mar­i­juana was stolen from a police stor­age trailer in 2003, two offi­cers were accused of being “inten­tion­ally decep­tive” and served a one-month sus­pen­sion in 2011. In 2006, Boston police uncov­ered the theft of drug evi­dence from hun­dreds of cases, but an inves­ti­ga­tion pro­duced no arrests, said Boston police spokes­woman Elaine Driscoll. The Boston Police Depart­ment added cam­eras to the evi­dence vault and a new elec­tronic evi­dence track­ing system.

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

The Boston Globe, boston.com, METRODESK
BYLINE: Mil­ton J. Valen­cia, Globe Staff
Link to Article

Attle­boro, MA

Law enforce­ment offi­cials are inves­ti­gat­ing the sus­pi­cious dis­ap­pear­ance of cocaine and other ille­gal drugs from the Attle­boro Police Department’s evi­dence room fol­low­ing an audit trig­gered by a change of lead­er­ship in the department.

The city’s mayor, Kevin J. Dumas, con­firmed in a state­ment today that an inter­nal audit had dis­cov­ered that drugs were missing.

The results of the audit have trig­gered an inter­nal police inves­ti­ga­tion, with the assis­tance of an inde­pen­dent con­sul­tant. The Bris­tol dis­trict attorney’s office is also assist­ing in the inves­ti­ga­tion, and the state attor­ney general’s office has been notified.

Dumas said the audit was com­mis­sioned as a mat­ter of rou­tine when Chief Kyle Heag­ney took over as act­ing chief more than a year ago, fol­low­ing the con­tro­ver­sial res­ig­na­tion of for­mer Chief Richard Pierce.

“[Chief Heag­ney] and I are tak­ing this inves­ti­ga­tion very seri­ously and this type of mis­con­duct will not be tol­er­ated,” Dumas said in a state­ment. “I have full faith and con­fi­dence in Chief Heag­ney and all those who are par­tic­i­pat­ing in this investigation.”

Heag­ney said he is inves­ti­gat­ing whether the drugs were stolen and whether they were used by any officers.

“This cor­rup­tion is an insult to the eth­i­cal and decent offi­cers who do their job in a just man­ner, and their right­eous­ness is being over­shad­owed,” he said, say­ing the theft demon­strates the need for manda­tory drug test­ing for police officers.

“This type of cor­rup­tion makes the entire depart­ment look bad. I have zero tol­er­ance for police cor­rup­tion,” he said.

Gregg Mil­iote, a spokesman for Bris­tol Dis­trict Attor­ney Samuel Sut­ter, said his office is assist­ing in the inves­ti­ga­tion. He had no com­ment on whether the dis­ap­pear­ance of any drugs would inter­fere with Bris­tol County pros­e­cu­tions, say­ing, “I think we need to let the inves­ti­ga­tion play itself out.”

The dis­ap­pear­ance of the drugs was first reported today by The Sun Chron­i­cle of Attle­boro. Heag­ney said that that the drugs were dis­cov­ered to be miss­ing in August.

The chief hired APD Man­age­ment, a pri­vate police con­sult­ing com­pany run by for­mer Tewks­bury Police Chief Alfred P. Dono­van that spe­cial­izes in inter­nal police inves­ti­ga­tions, to help in the probe.

The dis­cov­ery of miss­ing drugs comes at a dif­fi­cult time for the depart­ment. Heag­ney, promis­ing reform, offi­cially took over in Octo­ber fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion last year of for­mer chief Pierce.

The for­mer chief stepped down at the request of Dumas amid alle­ga­tions that he mis­han­dled an inves­ti­ga­tion of his son, Patrol­man Richard Pierce Jr. The younger Pierce allegedly lied about the use of a Taser dur­ing an arrest, and was ulti­mately fired.

The depart­ment is also still cop­ing with the alleged wrong­do­ing of a vet­eran dis­patcher who was report­edly caught in a sting receiv­ing pack­ages of mar­i­juana sent through the mail ear­lier this month. The dis­patcher, Edward A. Gin­gras II of Attle­boro, is fac­ing charges related to the sting, Mil­iote said.

Heag­ney, a third-generation mem­ber of the depart­ment, whose father was a cap­tain, said he would root out wrong­do­ing within the depart­ment, but said it would take the coop­er­a­tion of hon­est police offi­cers as well.

“We only have bad cops when good cops help out,” he said. “We’ve had some police mis­con­duct, some cor­rup­tion issues, and it’s been a tough time. Nev­er­the­less … a par­a­digm shift is hap­pen­ing with this depart­ment.”
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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

Worces­ter Telegram & Gazette Corp., telegram.com
Link to Article

Web­ster, MA

WEBSTER —  A man who allegedly left behind a cig­a­rette dur­ing a June 2010 bur­glary has been arrested after DNA from the dis­carded butt was matched to him.

Joshua Piehl, 24, of 34 Worces­ter St., Charl­ton, on a war­rant Wednes­day and charged with break­ing and enter­ing in the day­time with intent to com­mit a felony and two counts of wan­ton destruc­tion of prop­erty. He was arraigned in Dud­ley Dis­trict Court and released on per­sonal recognizance.

Police were called to the home of an elderly woman on Gore Road on June 27, 2010, after she reported hear­ing strange voices in her base­ment. Offi­cers found the home had been bro­ken into and dis­cov­ered the cig­a­rette butt, which was sent to the state police crime laboratory.

Police were recently noti­fied that the DNA matched Mr. Piehl and they got a war­rant for his arrest.

Web­ster police Detec­tive Gor­don D. Went­worth Jr. wrote in a news release that Mr. Piehl con­fessed to the break-in in Web­ster and to a sim­i­lar inci­dent in Douglas. 

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