DRUG SNAFU EMBARRASSES POLICE

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The investigation into cocaine that was lost then found
in the Providence Police Department evidence room is not over.

Responding to public skepticism over the incident, Maj. Richard Sullivan
said the department will continue with its internal investigation.

Earlier this week, police admitted that they could not find the cocaine.
The following day they located the drugs just before a scheduled press
conference at Providence City Hall.

Sullivan said the department will try to determine how the drugs, which
were seized in a 1997 drug arrest, ended up in an old drug locker rather
than another storage area for more recent seizures.

They will also investigate why a ledger, which said the drugs were
destroyed, was undated and unsigned.

At the press conference, Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. said there was no
"hanky panky" by the police, but he called for an improvement in department
procedures.

Cianci asked the state auditor general to conduct an audit of the police
department's evidence room and procedures.

The state attorney general's office is also investigating, WJAR reports.

The narcotics, worth an estimated $20,000, was the latest in a string of
unaccounted for items seized in police raids.

The other items include gold, electronics and automobiles.

The result has been bad publicity for the police department.

The search for the cocaine began last week after an inquiry from The
Providence Journal to furnish records on the kilogram of cocaine. The
cocaine had been used as evidence in a drug trial which ended in the
acquittal of two people.

After the court ruling, police normally would have returned the cocaine to
the department's drug locker and have it destroyed soon after.

On Wednesday, police eventually found the drugs after a locksmith opened a
second locker in the basement. The only officer who had the locker key was
on vacation at the time. When he was asked to return to Providence with the
key, police said he refused.

Capt. John J. Ryan, who found the drugs, said he was surprised.

"Truthfully, I initially didn't believe it when I spotted the drugs
myself," Ryan told The Providence Journal.