IAPE Evidence Blog

Hous­ton Chron­i­cle, chron.com
BYLINE: ZAIN SHAUK, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Link to Article

Hous­ton, TX

Back­log esti­mate dou­bles to at least 6,000, depart­ment confirms

The Hous­ton Police Department’s back­log of untested rape kits totals between 6,000 and 7,000 — 50 per­cent more than what offi­cials pre­vi­ously acknowl­edged, accord­ing to a memo from Chief Charles McClelland.

HPD for years has insisted that the back­log of untested rape kits was around 4,000. The details from the chief’s memo con­firm a Hous­ton Chron­i­cle report that the back­log likely was far greater.

The back­log also is likely to con­tinue to grow. Accord­ing to McClelland’s memo, HPD receives some 930 new rape kits each year. HPD offi­cials pre­vi­ously have said the depart­ment is able to test only 30 to 40 a month.

A back­log that could include as many as 7,000 untested rape kits should be a cause for major con­cern, said Johnny Mata, an activist for the Greater Hous­ton Coali­tion for Justice.

“There’s peo­ple in jail that may be inno­cent,” Mata said. “There’s women that may be fear­ing for their lives. It’s unacceptable.”

McClelland’s five-page memo was pro­duced in response to a series of ques­tions from Coun­cil­woman Jolanda Jones, who lec­tured depart­ment and city offi­cials dur­ing a City Coun­cil meet­ing Wednes­day for being unre­spon­sive. Jones said HPD and city offi­cials had been vague in response to her lengthy inquiry about progress in research­ing and exam­in­ing a back­log of sex­ual assault kits.

Fund­ing awarded

The dis­cus­sion was prompted by a coun­cil vote to accept a National Insti­tute of Jus­tice grant total­ing $821,814 to study and test Houston’s back­log of untested kits. The fund­ing is part of a two-phase, $1.14 mil­lion award from the NIJ. The bulk of the money will go toward deter­min­ing the rea­sons rape kits go untested and how to reduce the back­log more quickly.

Jones was the only coun­cil mem­ber to vote against accept­ing the second-phase money, say­ing she could not gauge whether pre­vi­ous grant dol­lars were being used effec­tively, based on the infor­ma­tion from HPD.

Mayor Annise Parker said that the city could not pro­vide an exact fig­ure for the amount of untested rape kits but offered a range of 6,000 to 7,000.

“We do not have an exact num­ber of rape kits in each cat­e­gory because part of these dol­lars were to do an audit of exactly that and we have endeav­ored to explain that process to you,” Parker said to Jones.

McClelland’s memo explained that the depart­ment was work­ing to final­ize an audit rel­a­tive to the num­ber, “how­ever, the ini­tial inven­tory count­ing is complete.”

Respond­ing to Jones’ ques­tions about the num­ber of kits tested, McClelland’s memo stated that the two-phase NIJ grant “allows for approx­i­mately 320 cases to be out­sourced for test­ing. That out­sourc­ing process is ongo­ing.” The grant has also sup­ported the screen­ing of 1,000 kits, so far. The screen­ing is used to deter­mine whether there is enough bio­log­i­cal evi­dence for a sex­ual assault kit to be used for DNA testing.

Past prob­lems

The depart­ment con­ducted an audit that deter­mined that between 16,000 and 17,000 rape kits dat­ing back to the 1980s are stored in HPD’s prop­erty divi­sion, the memo said. Of those, roughly a third, or between 6,000 and 7,000, have not been examined.

DNA test­ing at HPD’s crime lab was tem­porar­ily sus­pended in 2002, after an inde­pen­dent audit revealed shoddy foren­sic work, includ­ing unqual­i­fied per­son­nel, lax pro­to­cols and facil­i­ties that included a roof that leaked rain­wa­ter onto evidence.

Since the lab resumed oper­a­tions five years ago, the roof and other inte­rior prob­lems have been fixed. The lab also has reduced or elim­i­nated back­logs in areas such as nar­cotics and ballistics.

Cut­ting down the rape kit back­log has been a chal­lenge because of a lack of resources and per­son­nel, HPD offi­cials have said.

HPD spokesman John Can­non said the first phase of the grant, total­ing $178,000, was to “help us deter­mine the rea­sons for the back­log and to pre­vent that from hap­pen­ing again in the future.”

Coun­cil­man Oliver Pen­ning­ton called for reg­u­lar reports on progress to work through the backlog.

For­mer chief’s support

Coun­cil­man C.O. Brad­ford, the for­mer police chief, agreed with the nature of Jones’ inquiry, which he called “quite volu­mi­nous,” but said HPD had pro­vided enough infor­ma­tion to war­rant sup­port for the grant.

“I’m con­vinced that Chief McClel­land is doing every­thing that he pos­si­bly can and that he takes it very, very seri­ously and under­stands the impact that the analy­sis of these kits that are being stored can have on our crim­i­nal jus­tice process today,” Brad­ford said. “But it comes down to resource and this is an exam­ple of resources being gar­nered to help move for­ward in the process.” 

zain.shauk@chron.com, twitter.com/zainshauk

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

Gray Tele­vi­sion, Inc., kxii.com
BYLINE: Josh Steven­son, josh.stevenson@kxii.com
Link to Article

Grayson County, TX

SHERMAN, TX — A for­mer Grayson County Sheriff’s deputy is under crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, accused of tak­ing guns from the department.

SHERMAN, TX — A for­mer Grayson County Sheriff’s deputy is under crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, accused of tak­ing guns from the department.

Sher­iff J. Keith Gary said at a press con­fer­ence Mon­day that the deputy has been fired, and he expects crim­i­nal charges to be filed. The man’s name has not been released. Gary declined to answer any ques­tions, pend­ing fur­ther investigation.

In a press release the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office said a num­ber of guns were miss­ing from the prop­erty room although many have already been recovered.

Sher­iff Gary says he believes the employee acted alone.

“The action of one employee does not rep­re­sent the stan­dards I have set from this office. This was this is a one time inci­dent involv­ing one employee, and I took imme­di­ate action on it,” said Sher­iff Gary.

The Texas Rangers have been called in to inves­ti­gate. Sher­iff Gary says deputies are con­duct­ing an inven­tory of the prop­erty room.

Gary released the fol­low­ing state­ment to reporters:

“On Decem­ber 2, 2011 the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office began an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion on an employee for misconduct.

Through that inves­ti­ga­tion I learned that the employee was involves in crim­i­nal activity.

I imme­di­ately requested that the Texas Rangers con­duct a crim­i­nal investigation.

Texas Ranger Brad Oliver inter­viewed the employee and received enough infor­ma­tion to sub­stan­ti­ate the crim­i­nal complaint.

The employee has been ter­mi­nated and the inves­ti­ga­tion in ongoing.

The actions of one employee does not rep­re­sent the stan­dards I have set for this office. This is a one­time inci­dent involv­ing one employee I took imme­di­ate action on. I ask the pub­lic to con­tinue to trust and have faith in the employ­ees of the Sheriff’s Office. We will con­tinue to serve and pro­tect the cit­i­zens of Grayson County as we have in the past.”

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

The Daily News, galvestondailynews.com
BYLINE: Christo­pher Smith Gon­za­lez, The Daily News
Link to Article

La Mar­que, TX

LA MARQUE — Drugs, money and pos­si­bly firearms all went miss­ing from the School Dis­trict Police Department’s evi­dence room at some point dur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion of the pre­vi­ous police chief, Tim­o­thy Fields, the cur­rent police chief for the school dis­trict, said.

Fields said he learned of the miss­ing items when he con­ducted an audit soon after he was appointed chief in July 2010. Fields would not go into specifics about the weapons reported missing.

Fields said he noti­fied the Texas Rangers, which often inves­ti­gates other law-enforcement agen­cies, about the miss­ing evi­dence when he first did the audit. Since then, he also has found an offense report writ­ten by a for­mer school dis­trict offi­cer on June 29, 2009 that states evi­dence had gone miss­ing, Fields said.

He also has found an April 2009 email between for­mer police Chief Rus­sell Wash­ing­ton and the school district’s human resources direc­tor dis­cussing miss­ing evi­dence, Fields said.

Wash­ing­ton could not be reached for comment.

Fields was appointed police chief after Wash­ing­ton was fired in 2010. At the time, Wash­ing­ton was under indict­ment in an alleged attempt to fal­sify doc­u­ments to obtain a title to a vehicle.

The charges were dropped, and Wash­ing­ton has demanded his old job back, along with compensation.

An inves­ti­ga­tion into the miss­ing evi­dence was under way, and no sus­pects had been iden­ti­fied, Fields said.

“This is not some­thing that was done on a whim,” Fields said of the inves­ti­ga­tion. “The only thing I’m doing is try­ing to pro­tect the integrity of the department.”

Some­one needs to be held account­able for the miss­ing evi­dence, Fields said.

He said one of the rea­sons he was adamant about fol­low­ing through with the inves­ti­ga­tion was he didn’t want to be left respon­si­ble for some­thing that did not hap­pen under his watch.

“I don’t want it to blow up in my face,” Fields said.

The miss­ing evi­dence was kept in a locked file cab­i­net in a room at the high school, Fields said. Only the school district’s police offi­cers had access to it, he said. Fields said he now is the only offi­cer who has access to that room.

He said he has asked for assis­tance from the dis­trict attorney’s office and the fed­eral Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo­sives. He said Texas Rangers have come by the depart­ment and that he was work­ing with them to file the paper­work the Rangers need.

Ecomet Bur­ley, super­in­ten­dent for the La Mar­que school dis­trict, said he had been made aware of the miss­ing items by Fields.

“It is an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion by the chief of police into the miss­ing items and the incon­sis­ten­cies in the report that was filed,” Bur­ley said.

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