FEW DETAILS ON POLICE EVIDENCE SECURITY

A few years ago the police department in Fort Worth, Texas, had a
problem with the chronic disappearance of confiscated pornography
from the evidence room.

Officers were watching the videotapes for lunch-hour entertainment --
until higher-ups started requiring a supervisor's signature for
release of that type of evidence.

"That put a quick stop to that," said John Vasquez, who leads the
Texas association for evidence technicians.

A much more serious security problem -- theft of heroin -- surfaced
at the Madison Police Department late last year. Investigators say an
officer removed the addictive drug from the property room for no
legitimate reason at least 10 times.

The department didn 't notice the pattern until after Detective
Jeffery Hughes crashed his car near Edgerton Nov. 20 and
investigators say they found a torn-open evidence bag of heroin and
other drug-related materials in and around his car.

As in Fort Worth, command officers in Madison almost immediately
started requiring a supervisor 's signature for the removal of
sensitive evidence and say they are looking for more improvements.

But two months later, they 've disclosed very little else.

Chief Noble Wray has refused to explain key details about what
policies or procedures existed before the crash, how they may change
and whether any other officers have been implicated in wrong-doing.
He has promised to say more after the Hughes criminal investigation
and a review of property room practices are complete.

"This is not something I want to keep internal," Wray said in an
interview last week. "It 's important to share the information. But
at this point in time, I don 't have any updates."

Police spokesman Joel DeSpain said Wray is having records checked
"going back many years" to find out if there have been additional
breaches -- mainly, whether officers may have exploited security
loopholes in the rules to get drugs or other items for personal use
or to tamper with evidence in pending cases.

Good First Step

State and national experts say a supervisor's signature for the
release of sensitive evidence is a good first step.

But they stress that much more needs to be done to prevent officers
from succumbing to the temptation of drugs, cash and other valuables
sealed in storage lockers amid the stolen bikes, lost purses and
other found property in police evidence rooms.

Maintaining a secure environment has become especially important in
recent years because of advances in DNA analysis and other techniques
that may require police to keep evidence secure for decades in case of appeals.

"It's an area of policing that requires attention and financing and a
greater degree of scrutiny than ever before," said William Kiley, a
retired New York deputy police chief who trains departments
nationwide in property room practices.

The Madison department's reluctance to specifically explain how its
system works, will work or used to work makes it difficult to say now
what may be needed.

Tight Time Lines

Nationally recognized best practices include tight time lines for
officers to return removed evidence and systems that track and
double-check the location of evidence. Several respected
police-standards groups say such steps help to elevate practices in
police property rooms, which traditionally have been cluttered,
basement-level spaces that long have been viewed as the "red-headed
step-child" of police operations, Vasquez said.

"We 've been down in the dungeon all these years," he said. "Now it's
time to do better, because an evidence room can make or break a
police department. It 's just that in a lot of agencies, until
something happens, they don 't make changes."

Could Be Charged

Since the crash, Hughes, 39, of Milton has been fighting for his life
- -- first at UW Hospital, where he spent weeks in a medically induced
coma, and now in an unidentified care facility. City lawyers say his
medical bills are being paid by a department disability policy that
kicked in after the accident.

Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney last week said his detectives were
"close to concluding" the criminal investigation of Hughes' crash. He
could be charged with heroin possession and disciplined internally.

Court records show there had been clues something may have been
wrong. Hughes often was not the detective assigned to the cases for
which he sought -- and received -- drug evidence. He also repeatedly
filled out property request slips saying he wanted the heroin for
"testing," even though the drugs in question had often already been
tested or were slated to be destroyed because the cases were resolved.

Investigators believe Hughes, who was known to suffer from painful
chronic headaches, was taking the drugs for his own use. The
investigation has ruled out drug-dealing by Hughes and the
possibility he had an accomplice.

"This scenario is regrettably not unique," Kiley said. "In most cases
around the country, the individual has been addicted to a substance
and that was the reason for the theft."

Hughes' alleged frequent focus on drugs that were slated for
destruction also fits with national patterns.

'Most Vulnerable'

Kiley said drugs slated for destruction are the "most vulnerable
entity " in a property room because the material is no longer needed
by the courts but typically is kept around until large enough
quantities accumulate to be shipped to a regional disposal facility.

Kiley said it's best that those kinds of drugs be stored separately
from other drugs and that clerks in busy property rooms are
periodically prompted through an automated system to check up on any
evidence that has been temporarily removed for any purpose. He also
said officers who remove evidence should be required to quickly
return it or provide a third-party receipt showing where it is, such
as at a crime lab or in a court.

"We recommend that departments have a requirement that when evidence
is signed out, it's brought back or a receipt is provided by the end
of the (day)," said Kiley, president of the International Association
for Property and Evidence, based in Burbank, Calif.

Not Always Accepted

Experts acknowledged -- as Madison police have said informally --
that a determined rule-breaker can find ways to circumvent almost any
security system. It 's also true that some steps, such as requiring a
supervisor 's signature, aren 't universally accepted and can have
certain drawbacks, such as possibly making the process slower or less
efficient.

Most experts also stress that property room clerks -- who for budget
reasons are increasingly civilian employees -- must be trained to see
red flags and report concerns to supervisors.

In Hughes ' case, on the day of the crash, the property room clerk
who gave him 4.8 grams of heroin in an evidence bag later told
investigators she thought the request was "odd " because she knew he
wasn 't assigned to the case and that the drugs had already been tested.

She also said Hughes seemed to be in a "daze " and "high. "

Madison police have refused to say whether property clerks can deny
requests and whether the clerk in this case told anyone about her
concerns before investigators talked to her a few days after the crash.

They have said the property was "properly checked out " under
procedures in effect then.

In two brief public statements since the crash, police officials said
the existing property room system is designed to "thoroughly document
the chain of custody " and that it does a good job of monitoring
evidence through an "accountable tracking system " in which a paper
trail exists whenever evidence is moved.

They also said clerks "are able to ascertain where evidence is at any
point in time, " but they won 't say whether clerks routinely check
on the status of removed evidence.

Outside observers have not agreed with the police department 's
assessment of the system. Former Madison police officer Michael
Scott, who now directs the UW Center for Problem-Oriented Policing,
said the incidents involving Hughes "quite obviously did expose a
flaw in a lax policy. "

Vasquez said it was "rare " and "not the norm " for officers to be
allowed to check out evidence on cases they aren 't assigned to,
especially if the evidence is marked for destruction or already has
been tested.