GRAND JURY BLASTS CONSTABLE FOR MISSING COCAINE

CONROE -- A Montgomery County grand jury fired off a scathing report
Tuesday, blasting a constable who could not explain how 17 pounds of
cocaine valued at more than $1 million disappeared from his evidence room.

While there is not yet enough evidence to issue indictments, the panel
wrote, Precinct 4 Constable Travis Bishop is guilty of "at best sloppy or
inept administration," and the county should take steps to ensure that more
disappearances do not occur.

The report, addressed to Commissioners Court, recommends that commissioners
direct the sheriff to establish a centralized depository where the county's
five constables -- and all law-enforcement agencies -- would be required to
take confiscated drugs to be secured.

The cocaine was taken from the evidence room in New Caney late last year.
Grand jurors who looked into the incident concluded that Bishop "either
doesn't know what to do or doesn't care and likely won't take adequate
definitive action to prevent such occurrences in the future."

The report notes that while evidence has so far been insufficient for
indictments, "grand jury members were shocked at the lack of procedures,
controls, safeguards and precautions in place to assure the integrity of
the drug-possession chain from arrest to trial by the elected
law-enforcement officer and his deputies entrusted with such responsibility
following interdiction of suspects.

"The lack of a codified and enforced policy in place at the constable's
office was at best sloppy or inept administration and at worst gross
negligence," the report states.

Bishop, 45, who has been in office since 1989, could not be reached for
comment Tuesday.

Recently, however, after he and his deputies testified before the grand
jury, he told the Houston Chronicle that he had thought the lock on the
evidence room was sufficient.

Noting that the lock apparently had been picked, he said he wanted to work
with the district attorney's office to establish tighter security and
policies to ensure that no more drugs could disappear.

Bishop's office has been more active in drug interdiction than most county
constables' departments because of the heavy flow of drugs along U.S. 59,
which runs through his east Montgomery County precinct.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski