Cops Say Guns, Drugs, Money Locked, Tracked
By Ben Schmitt, Detroit Free Press
Once a bastion of disorganization, the Detroit police evidence room has been transformed from a joke to a secure storage outfit that executives are starting to boast about.
The evidence room on the first floor of Detroit Police Headquarters became the focus of attention last year when nine people -- including a civilian employee -- were indicted on charges of stealing 223 pounds of cocaine from inside. The department had also announced that as much as $5 million in cash was improperly inventoried and could be missing.
The cases are still pending.
The evidence room had guns stacked on top of guns, falling from the shelves, all being housed as evidence.
“If you’ve ever gone into the property room, it’s an enormous sight to take in,” Assistant Police Chief Ella Bully Cummings told the Free Press at a recent editorial board meeting.
Now, all of the money appears to have been accounted for and deposited into bank accounts; the department has negotiated with State Police to burn unneeded guns at least twice a month, and drug and vault access has been limited to a small number of trusted police supervisors with access-key cards, according to Deputy Chief Brenda Goss Andrews. Some shelves are actually empty.
The department has scheduled six gun burns this month and has burned about 25,000 guns since January. On March 27, the department destroyed 5,037 guns, some dating back to the 1970s, in the largest gun burn in department history at the Rouge Steel plant in Dearborn.
“If you remember the barrels of guns crowding aisles, you’ll actually see some aisles that are clear,” Andrews said Tuesday. “There is a significant difference. Certainly, I was overwhelmed when I visited the room a year ago.”
The department is also negotiating with a private firm to move the evidence room into a new, 100,000-square-foot warehouse at an undisclosed location. The evidence room currently has 45,000 square feet of space.
“We would like to have moved yesterday,” said Lt. Stephen Carlin. Andrews said she hopes to move the evidence room within a year.
Other changes include:
* A plan to dispose of property more than 6 years old.
* Increased training for property room employees.
* New computers with bar code scanning to keep evidence computerized and update records faster.
* A computerized currency counter to help identify counterfeit money.
The cases are still pending for the nine people indicted last year on drug charges.