IAPE Evidence Blog

LIN Tele­vi­sion Cor­po­ra­tion, KRQE, krqe.com
Reporter: Dean Sta­ley
Pro­ducer: Jason Aus­lan­der
Link to Arti­cle
One Video

Truth or Con­se­quences, NM

Unneeded shot­guns, assault rifles sold to public

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES (KRQE) — In the sum­mer of 2010, the Truth or Con­se­quences Police Depart­ment was hurt­ing for funds.

So Chief Patrick Gal­lagher had one of his lieu­tenants round up all the guns in the department’s evi­dence room that had been used in sui­cides, dropped off over the years for safe­keep­ing or were no longer needed for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions, and sold them to the pub­lic at an auc­tion in Las Cruces.

And that would have been per­fectly legal had Gal­lagher fol­lowed state law. But he didn’t.

In fact, the chief and his depart­ment com­pletely ignored all three things they were sup­posed to do under New Mex­ico law before sell­ing the weapons.

Gal­lagher said that if he made mis­takes with the auc­tion, he will make sure to toe the legal line if the depart­ment decides to sell off guns again.

“This auc­tion was not con­ducted with any mali­cious or nefar­i­ous intent in mind,” Gal­lagher said in a news release. “If we become aware of any errors or mis­takes made in the process they will be rectified.”

Sources told News 13 that Attor­ney Gen­eral Gary King’s office has launched an inves­ti­ga­tion into T or C’s gun auc­tion, though a spokesper­son refused to con­firm or deny the inquiry.

State law says that in order to dis­pose of or destroy weapons, law enforce­ment agen­cies must first adver­tise to try and find the orig­i­nal own­ers. Then the agency has to con­tact a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the state muse­ums, who must be allowed to inspect the guns for any his­tor­i­cal value. Finally, the depart­ment must obtain an order from a Dis­trict Court judge autho­riz­ing the disposal.

Gal­lagher admit­ted he didn’t do any of those things before send­ing 87 hand­guns, rifles, assault rifles and shot­guns to an auc­tion­eer in Las Cruces. A group of reg­is­tered gun deal­ers and gun afi­ciona­dos cleared by law enforce­ment bought the weapons June 26, 2010 at an auc­tion in Las Cruces, accord­ing to doc­u­ments obtained by News 13.

Less than a month later, T or C police received a check for $10, 451 from auc­tion­eer Charles Dick­er­son for the guns, accord­ing to the documents.

In addi­tion to admit­ting he didn’t fol­low the law, Gal­lagher told News 13 he wasn’t con­cerned about putting more guns back on the streets of New Mexico.

And he’s not alone.

The Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office reg­u­larly sells evi­dence room guns at auc­tion, accord­ing to a spokesper­son. How­ever, the agency fol­lows the para­me­ters set out in state law before sell­ing the guns, she said.

But police chiefs in the state’s three largest cities told News 13 they are con­cerned about sell­ing evi­dence room guns to the pub­lic. In fact, depart­ments in Santa Fe, Albu­querque and Las Cruces fol­low poli­cies call­ing for the destruc­tion of weapons that are no longer needed.

APD went so far as to buy a specially-designed gun-muncher a few years ago that slices the weapons in half, ren­der­ing them for­ever inoperable.

“I think it’s the last thing any­body would want is to have a firearm that was in our pos­ses­sion that some­how got sold and then some­how ended up in the wrong person’s hands and then was used in a crime,” said Albu­querque Police Chief Ray Schultz.

Schultz said APD stopped sell­ing weapons from the evi­dence room to the pub­lic more than 30 years ago.

“If they can be destroyed, let’s destroy it because, unfor­tu­nately, there’s many, many more out there in the wrong hands,” he said. “It’s not worth tak­ing the chance and we don’t need the money that bad.”

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

Albu­querque Jour­nal: Albu­querque, New Mex­ico, Jour­nal North, abqjournal.com
BYLINE: Vic Vela / Jour­nal Staff Writer
Link to Article

Santa Fe County, NM

For­mer Santa Fe County Sher­iff Greg Solano sold $73,364 in county prop­erty on eBay for his own profit, accord­ing to results of an audit released by the State Auditor’s Office.

Addi­tion­ally, a press release sent from State Audi­tor Hec­tor Balderas’ office says that the audit fond that the evi­dence room at the sheriff’s office was dis­or­ga­nized and that the items inside of it were left sus­cep­ti­ble to theft. Solano and another sergeant “peri­od­i­cally over­rode con­trols” to gain entry to the evi­dence room and were able to walk “in and out” with­out pro­vid­ing appro­pri­ate signatures.

The audit found that there was “an over­all lack of poli­cies and pro­ce­dures at the Sheriff’s Office, includ­ing defi­cient con­trols related to the office’s evi­dence, ammu­ni­tion and sup­ply rooms,” the press release states.

The audit was con­ducted by an inde­pen­dent audi­tor “to deter­mine whether, and to what extent, the County had suf­fered from theft, fraud or embez­zle­ment by Solano from Decem­ber 15, 2004 through Decem­ber 15, 2010.”

Balderas said of Solano in the press state­ment that he is “deeply trou­bled that an elected offi­cial repeat­edly betrayed the pub­lic trust in this manner.”

Solano, 47, resigned in Novem­ber after admit­ting he sold county owned prop­erty, that included body armor and hand­cuffs, on eBay for his per­sonal profit. He has been charged with 252 counts of embez­zle­ment or fraud. Solano with­drew more than $3,000 from ATMs inside casi­nos in New Mex­ico and Nevada over a 22-month period, and from an account tied to his ille­gal online sales of sheriff’s office prop­erty, accord­ing to finan­cial records obtained by the Journal.

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

Albu­querque Jour­nal Online Edi­tion, abqjournal.com
By ABQnews Staff
Link to Article

Col­fax County, NM

Fol­low­ing a months-long inves­ti­ga­tion by New Mex­ico State Police and the 8th Judi­cial Dis­trict Attorney’s Office into the dis­ap­pear­ance of more than $34,000 in cash, more than 25 pounds of mar­i­juana and a gun from the Sheriff’s Office evi­dence room a year ago, Dis­trict Attor­ney Don­ald Gal­le­gos has decided not to pros­e­cute any­one, The Raton Range reported.

The items have not been recov­ered and a “very thor­ough and detailed inves­ti­ga­tion” has pro­duced no evi­dence strong enough to iden­tify con­clu­sively the per­son who took the items or to sup­port a con­vic­tion, Gal­le­gos told The Range.

Gal­le­gos, how­ever, urged any­one with infor­ma­tion that could move the case for­ward to con­tact his office in Taos at (575) 758‑8683 or State Police in Raton at (575) 445‑5571, the paper reported.

Sher­iff Pat Casias told The Range he has received the State Police report and his depart­ment has deter­mined that it “was not any of our per­son­nel” who took the items from the evi­dence room, which at the time was part of the sheriff’s office in the Col­fax County Building.

The State Police inves­ti­ga­tion looked at con­trac­tors who were work­ing in the build­ing at the time the items dis­ap­peared, Casias told the paper.

The sheriff’s office has a new evi­dence room at its new facil­ity in the judi­cial cen­ter on South Sec­ond Street in Raton that is more secure, includ­ing lock­ers that can be locked and num­bered shelves that can keep track of exactly where items can be found in the evi­dence room, Casias said.

The sher­iff told The Range he believes the miss­ing cash and most of the mar­i­juana came from a high­way drug bust while he thinks the gun came from a sep­a­rate case.

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