By Mark Williams, The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Before shootings along a stretch of interstate were linked, police twice left behind bullets shot into vehicles that they thought were not of much importance in minor property damage cases.
Deciding not to collect evidence in such cases is not uncommon, law enforcement officials said.
After investigators figured out a string of shootings along a stretch of Interstate 270 were connected, Columbus police retrieved the two bullets from the vehicle owners. Both shootings were added to a list of 15 that investigators say are related, including one the killed a woman. Ballistics tests showed one of the retrieved slugs came from the same gun as five others in the case.
Because cases are filed with different police agencies that may not be aware of similar crimes elsewhere and victims do not always know where and when the crime occurred, some cases may not get connected immediately, said Bob Cornwell, executive director of the Buckeye State Sheriffs’ Association.
And there is no national database that could be used to compare bullets recovered from crime scenes, he said.
There would have to be some common threads to justify trying ballistics tests, he said.
In some cases before the highway shootings, officers responding to a call of a window shot out or a bullet hole in a house might determine there is nothing more to investigate after a preliminary review.
“If there is no evidence of foul play, it’s going to be up to the officer” to determine if bullets or other evidence should be taken, Columbus police Sgt. Brent Mull said.
If police decide to keep a bullet, it likely would be stored for six months and then destroyed if the case does not develop, he said. Some items collected, such as bicycles, are sold at auctions.
“We’re basically housing garbage for free,” Mull said.
It is easy to second-guess police for the way they handle evidence, said Jack Levin, a criminologist and director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University.
Still, he said, “You would hope that police investigators would be more diligent.”
Most law enforcement departments have not encountered anything like the shootings that began May 1, but have mostly occurred in the last two months, Levin said.
Gail Knisley, 62, was killed Nov. 25 as she was being driven to a doctor’s appointment, authorities said. She was the only person hit in the shootings.
Classifying a report of someone claiming their vehicle has been shot can be difficult, Mull said.
Reports from victims who do not know when or where a shooting occurred or whether someone wants to hurt them may be classified as property damage, he said.
That does not mean the investigation is over, Mull said. Crime analysts in the police department do examine property damage reports and share the information with other officers.
Mull said a broken car window could be elevated to a felony if the officer sees that there has been attempt to steal the car, for instance, Mull said.
Cornwell said there are no national standards on how officers should to handle cases of car or building damage from bullets.
When Columbus officers investigated the shooting of a van last month in a used car lot, they initially opted not to take the bullet from the scene.
The same thing happened on Nov. 18 when a woman reported that her Ford Explorer had been struck by a bullet while she was driving on U.S. 23 near I-270 before the shootings were connected. She asked to keep the bullet, Mull said.
“We’ve never experienced this before in Columbus,” he said. “I don’t know that an officer would feel comfortable now to leave the bullet.”
At a news briefing on the shooting this week, Franklin County sheriff’s Chief Deputy Steve Martin said deputies would keep bullets found in similar cases.
Investigators will adjust their evidence-gathering practices because of the case, Levin said.
“From now on, they’re going to take every bullet fragment very seriously, I assure you.”