Posted on 07/23/2005 1:59:23 PM PDT by elkfersupper
It's eBay with a twist.
Underwear, hard hats, face lotion, appraised jewelry, functioning electronics and hundreds of other items that had been locked up in police evidence rooms across the nation are up for auction at www.propertyroom.com.
Running the Web site is Property Room Inc., used by 460 police departments around the nation.
Albuquerque might soon be 461.
The Metropolitan Forensic Science Center, providing evidence storage and crime scene analysis for the Albuquerque police, Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department and other law agencies, is waiting on legal approval to sign a contract with Property Room, said Joe Bowdich, APD's executive deputy director.
Bowdich expects the contract within a month. Once it's signed, the lost, stolen and confiscated evidence that can't be reunited with its rightful owners will be picked up by Property Room Inc., hauled to the company's Los Angeles warehouse, evaluated and put online for sale.
It won't cost APD a dime, and the police department gets to keep 50 percent to 75 percent of the sale, Property Room Inc. President Steve Lupinacci told the evidence room oversight committee Thursday.
Mayor Martin Chavez created the committee in April to oversee changes at the APD evidence room after allegations of theft, mismanagement and inadequate policies. No criminal charges were brought against any employee, but reports from the Attorney General's Office and the city's Independent Review Officer confirmed faulty procedures allowed theft.
Among problems the reports highlighted were the way in which evidence was disposed and auctioned. Before personnel changes and the committee's oversight, those procedures were loosely documented so it would have been easy for items to be taken, the reports said.
Now, items are tracked with bar codes and multiple cross-checks, said evidence unit Lt. Steve Warfield. Property Room Inc. can link with police computer system to continue the tracking, Lupinacci said.
The Web site also facilitates the return of items to people who see their long-lost or stolen family jewelry or other items on propertyroom.com.
"If we can verify that it is theirs, we'll return it to you (the police) and you decide what to do with it," Lupinacci said.
Also, if the item is needed again in a criminal case, it could be traced to whomever bought it online and retrieved, Lupinacci said.
The company services only one other police department in the state: Bloomfield Police Department. It also services the nation's two largest police departments, Los Angeles and New York City.
In other news from the commission on the evidence room:
The unit is preparing a spot for a "gun muncher," Bowdich said.
Once on site, the "gun muncher" will crush the 1,466 guns no longer needed in any criminal cases. That is about 8 percent of the guns held at the evidence room, Warfield said.
A space is being prepared for an incinerator-type device to destroy drugs, Bowdich said.
The drug destruction machine uses high heat to evaporate 1,000 pounds of drugs in 10 hours.
The evidence unit has about 3,000 pounds of drugs ready for disposal, Warfield said.
Interesting sidebar.......in NM, confiscated firearms can't be sold or donated. They have to be destroyed. Thus, the "gun muncher".
My beeber was (s)tuned earlier today.
Isn't the parallel between government and cancer almost scary? Both seem to have an amazing ability to grow new arteries to themselves so that they can grow and invade every part of the body.
Also, if the item is needed again in a criminal case, it could be traced to whomever bought it online and retrieved, Lupinacci said.
How much of the evidence should have been returned to the rightful owners? Stolen property is evidence and used at trial. Does it now get sold or returned.
Depending upon what it is, neither of the above. In the case of firearms, conviction results in destruction. Acquittal may or may not result in return. In no event are things sold now. The article is a follow-up on a series of articles where things just "disappeared".
Very well put. If allowed to reach its full potential, government consumes everything and produces nothing but misery to the governed.
Talk to the lady of the house. It's out of my control.
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If anyone else did this, we would call it a fencing operation and arrest them. Guess cops are the supercitizens now ?
Yup. This whole property confiscation thing has gotten out of hand. In Albuquerque, the city uses its "nuisance abatement" powers to confiscate your car if you drive through too many red-light cameras; and your house if you burn your fireplace on the wrong night, water your yard at the wrong time, host an underage booze party (with or without your consent), or if some zoning enforcement goon doesn't like the way you maintain your lawn.
"I'll take a kilo of coke, officer... what, you've used it all, already?"
The article is a follow-up on a series of articles where things just "disappeared".
Exactly. I'll try to post one of the original series of articles later.
The idiot that was huffing paint? I’d hate to see his lungs.
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