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BYLINE: Leon Hen­drix
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Muskegon Heights, MI

The Muskegon Heights Police Depart­ment, April 29, 2009

Memos obtained by 24 Hour News 8

MUSKEGON HEIGHTS, Mich. (WOOD) — In a memo, the for­mer interim police chief of the Muskegon Heights Police Depart­ment said he would be embar­rassed to hand the police depart­ment over to a new chief in the state it was in.

The memo was one of sev­eral doc­u­ments 24 Hour News 8 obtained from the city of Muskegon Heights using the Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act.

The evi­dence room was addressed in three of the memos sent from Interim Chief Ron Rake to City Man­ager Natasha Henderson.

It appears Rake had been work­ing on solu­tions for the evi­dence room since January.

In a memo sent Jan. 12, Rake pro­posed the city hire an evi­dence room tech­ni­cian, cit­ing other depart­ments in the state that do the same. He sug­gested the per­son in that posi­tion work along­side a police offi­cer to han­dle the evidence.

In the let­ter, Rake said he had con­tacted the police officer’s union and they said they would not con­test the cre­ation of the pro­posed posi­tion that would not have been filled by a police officer.

Rake told 24 Hour News 8 the posi­tion was never filled.

The offi­cer appointed to be in charge of the room is the offi­cer whose home was searched by state police look­ing for evi­dence in the department’s cor­rup­tion investigation.

On March 24, Rake sent another memo to the city man­ager, noti­fy­ing her of changes in offi­cer assignments.

In that memo, Rake said he was mov­ing one of the department’s lieu­tenants to a dif­fer­ent shift, in part, so he could “…learn and direct the pro­cess­ing of evi­dence and other prop­erty stored in the evi­dence room.”

Rake con­cluded that let­ter stat­ing “…our evi­dence room and some stor­age areas are in dire need of atten­tion and I would be embar­rassed to hand the police depart­ment over to the new chief of police in the con­di­tion they are in.”

Shortly after send­ing that memo, Rake resigned as the interim chief and asked Michi­gan State Police to investigate.

Wednes­day evening, Rake, who is now a deputy with the Muskegon County Sheriff’s Depart­ment, said he is sur­prised he has not yet been con­tacted by state police inves­ti­ga­tors. He would not dis­cuss details of the inves­ti­ga­tion, hon­or­ing an agree­ment he made with the city when he resigned.

Since 24 Hour News 8 began look­ing into this sit­u­a­tion, the city of Muskegon Heights has not returned phone calls or answered ques­tions about the investigation.

The city also has failed to respond to Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act requests appropriately.

After attor­neys for WOOD-TV con­tacted the city, 24 Hour News 8 received some of the doc­u­ments requested.

24 Hour News 8 con­tin­ues to work with its attor­neys and the city to get more infor­ma­tion about what hap­pened and what’s being done to fix it.

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

Muskegon Chron­i­cle (Michi­gan), A; Pg. 3
BYLINE: HEATHER LYNN PETERS

Muskegon Heights, MI

MUSKEGON HEIGHTS — The State Police inves­ti­ga­tion of the Muskegon Heights Police Depart­ment is a “sig­nif­i­cant” case that’s already required many hours of man­power, accord­ing to a lead investigator.

And it will be months before the results of the probe — cen­ter­ing on the department’s evi­dence stor­age room — are turned over to the Muskegon County Prosecutor’s office for review of pos­si­ble charges, said Detec­tive Lt. Curt Schram, of the Michi­gan State Police Sixth Dis­trict head­quar­ters in Grand Rapids.

As part of the com­plex inves­ti­ga­tion, Schram said police and city hall employ­ees have been interviewed.

“It’s time con­sum­ing, and there are a lot of man hours involved in this,” Schram said. “This is a sig­nif­i­cant case, and we’re going to do it right. It is going to take some time.”

The inves­ti­ga­tion began in April after the then-acting police chief, Ron Rake, alerted author­i­ties to the unor­ga­nized con­di­tion of the department’s evi­dence room and that money appeared to be missing.

Rake — who was brought in as interim chief after the unex­pected Nov. 1 death of Chief Clifton John­son — has since resigned and works as a deputy for the Muskegon County Sheriff’s office. Muskegon Heights Police Lt. Lynne Gill is expected to be named the department’s next police chief.

Schram is quick to point out that Rake and Gill were “not involved” in any wrong­do­ing. At this point, Schram said to his knowl­edge no one at the police depart­ment or city has been reprimanded.

“The depart­ment is coop­er­at­ing, and the city is coop­er­at­ing with the inves­ti­ga­tion,” Schram said.

So far, numer­ous state troop­ers and inves­ti­ga­tors have been involved in the tedious inves­ti­ga­tion process, Schram said.

“We had troop­ers there in April, three or four times a week, going through the prop­erty room,” Schram said.

“We’ve pretty much weaned our way out of there, but there were sev­eral detec­tives involved and a cou­ple of troopers.”

Schram said he was last at the police depart­ment on Wednesday.

Inves­ti­ga­tors remain immersed in a com­pli­cated audit­ing process while some are still “ana­lyz­ing records,” Schram said.

Author­i­ties haven’t dis­closed how much money they believe is miss­ing from the evi­dence room, which, accord­ing to Muskegon County Pros­e­cu­tor Tony Tague, was in “com­plete dis­ar­ray” when inves­ti­ga­tors arrived.

State Police and Muskegon Heights police offi­cials now are work­ing together “to set into place proper pro­ce­dures” con­cern­ing the evi­dence room, Tague has said.

The amount of evi­dence crammed in the department’s prop­erty room — includ­ing money, weapons and drugs — was “over­whelm­ing,” built up from lit­er­ally “hun­dreds of cases,” Tague said The stan­dard for most depart­ments is to auc­tion off some prop­erty, return prop­erty to its own­ers and, in some cases, destroy some pieces of evi­dence after a cer­tain period of time. That wasn’t hap­pen­ing at the Muskegon Heights depart­ment, Tague said.

The inves­ti­ga­tion will reveal “who may have been involved,” if money or other pieces of evi­dence have been taken from the room, Tague said.

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E-mail: hpeters@muskegonchronicle.com

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

Muskegon Chron­i­cle (Michi­gan), A; Pg. 1
BYLINE: HEATHER LYNN PETERS AND JOHN S. HAUSMAN

Muskegon Heights, MI

MUSKEGON HEIGHTS — The Muskegon Heights Police Depart­ment has not prop­erly secured evi­dence from hun­dreds of cases in its prop­erty room, pros­e­cu­tors say, and State Police inves­ti­ga­tors believe money is miss­ing from the room.

Muskegon County Pros­e­cu­tor Tony Tague said Wednes­day that an audit began more than a month ago of the police department’s evi­dence room after then-Acting Chief Ron Rake cited concerns.

“The evi­dence room was in com­plete dis­ar­ray, and my office as well as the State Police were con­cerned about the secu­rity pro­ce­dures in ref­er­ence to the access of that evi­dence room,” Tague said.

“At this point, we are work­ing with Muskegon Heights to set into place proper pro­ce­dures, and there is an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion to deter­mine whether there was any crim­i­nal activity.”

It was not clear Wednes­day what, if any­thing, had been taken from the room, Tague said.

But the amount of evi­dence — includ­ing money, weapons and drugs — in the room was “over­whelm­ing,” Tague said, built up from “lit­er­ally hun­dreds of cases.”

The stan­dard for most depart­ments is to auc­tion off some prop­erty, return prop­erty to its own­ers and, in some cases, destroy some pieces of evi­dence after a cer­tain period of time.

How­ever, that wasn’t hap­pen­ing at the Muskegon Heights depart­ment, Tague said.

“Depend­ing on the sever­ity of the case, usu­ally a police depart­ment works with my office about a stan­dard time frame of dis­pos­ing of evi­dence. Unfor­tu­nately, it appears that did not occur,” Tague said.

Tague said the inves­ti­ga­tion will reveal “who may have been involved” if money or other pieces of evi­dence has been taken from the room.

It is not unusual for a police depart­ment to keep money in an evi­dence room, Tague said.

The pros­e­cu­tor said he isn’t con­cerned that the prob­lem could under­mine pend­ing crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions or past con­vic­tions in cases inves­ti­gated by Muskegon Heights police.

“We haven’t seen any tam­per­ing with evi­dence that would impact cases,” Tague said. “How­ever, we’re cer­tainly con­cerned if any drugs or money might be miss­ing in a pend­ing case.”

He said a defense attor­ney would have to be able to point to a spe­cific flaw — such as an evi­dence box with a dam­aged seal — in order to estab­lish that the “chain of evi­dence” had been bro­ken. No such prob­lems have sur­faced, and a gen­er­al­ized claim based on the evi­dence room’s “com­plete dis­ar­ray” isn’t suf­fi­cient, Tague said.

Author­i­ties from the Michi­gan State Police Sixth Dis­trict head­quar­ters in Grand Rapids said its detec­tives are con­duct­ing the investigation.

State Police Detec­tive Lt. Curt Schram said city offi­cials and the police depart­ment are coop­er­at­ing. “The police depart­ment is assist­ing us in the inves­ti­ga­tion. That has to be clear,” he said.

In a press release, the State Police said an audit began sev­eral weeks ago of “some pos­si­ble dis­crep­an­cies into monies received by the Muskegon Heights Police Department.

“As a result of the ongo­ing audit, detec­tives believe that monies are miss­ing from the prop­erty room of the police depart­ment,” the press release said.

Rake resigned from the Muskegon Heights depart­ment in April and works as a deputy for the Muskegon County Sheriff’s Office.

On Wednes­day, Rake con­firmed that he alerted author­i­ties to the sit­u­a­tion, but he declined to com­ment fur­ther. He was brought in as interim chief after the unex­pected Nov. 1 death of 47-year-old Chief Clifton John­son. Rake had worked at the Muskegon Heights depart­ment as a lieu­tenant sev­eral years ago.

Mayor Dar­rell Paige said Wednes­day dur­ing a city hall press con­fer­ence that the city sup­ported the inves­ti­ga­tion and will con­tinue to coop­er­ate with authorities.

Muskegon Heights Lt. Lynne Gill, the cur­rent act­ing police chief, could not be reached for comment.

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E-mail: hpeters@muskegonchronicle.com

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