PROPERTY ROOM FIX IS LONG OVERDUE

If there had been no warnings of trouble ahead, the Memphis Police
Department's unprofessional approach toward the operation of its
property and evidence room would be easier to accept.

Shoddy practices continued, however, after state auditors warned in
1999 that the operation had weaknesses that threatened its security.
They continued after internal auditors with the city of Memphis issued
similar warnings in 2001 and 2002. A new manager was hired to fix the
situation - and later indicted for allegedly stealing property from
the room.

The most recent state audit, performed after an investigation of the
unit was launched in the fall of 2002, "determined that many of the
weaknesses previously brought to management's attention still
existed," state auditors reported this week. "Unless management takes
action to address these weaknesses, the (property and evidence room)
will continue to be susceptible to losses."

The losses we know about are alarming enough: Between Jan. 1, 2000, to
Sept. 30, 2003, the period covered by the audit, at least 116.6
kilograms of cocaine worth $2,332,408 disappeared, along with 559.8
pounds of marijuana estimated at $447,876, $147,218 in cash and at
least 66 firearms.

Police Director James Bolden served as deputy director under police
director Walter Crews during most of the period covered by the audit.
He told auditors that the recommended changes will be made: Clerks
will no longer be able to alter data they have entered on the computer
used to keep track of the property room inventory; a surveillance
camera will be maintained by a separate department; an independent
unit, rather than property room personnel, will destroy property when
destruction is called for; the department will complete an annual
inventory; metal detectors and security fencing will be installed to
limit access to property; unclaimed property will go to the state
treasurer's office.

Changes to enhance security, in fact, have been in place since the
audit began, police officials say.

Many of these changes are mandated by state law, however. How methods
that should have been standard came to be ignored at the police
department's property room is a question that throws the competence of
police administrators into question.

How could such highly risky procedures be tolerated for so long in an
operation with as many temptations as a police property room, with its
rich lode of drugs, firearms and other valuable property, not to
mention cash confiscated from suspected traffickers?

That there were problems in the property room has been public
knowledge since last September, when indictments were issued charging
the first of four current and former property room employees who have
been connected to the disappearance of drugs and money.

One suspect had more than $1 million in his possession when local and
federal agents searched his golf course home and one of his five cars.
Confiscated as a result of the investigation: four properties in
Memphis, Olive Branch and the Atlanta area worth $1.75 million, $2.4
million in cash and 29 vehicles, ranging from Fords and
Mercedes-Benzes to Freightliner trucks.

This March bribery and money laundering charges were filed against
defense lawyer Scott Crawford, a substitute judge in General Sessions
who was accused of helping members of the Gangster Disciples street
gang steal and resell drugs from the evidence room.

While those revelations were shocking, the scope of the problem wasn't
revealed until this week when auditors issued their final report and a
set of recommendations for sweeping change.

While it is comforting to know that changes are being made, it is
distressing to learn how long the thievery must have gone on and how
little was done to prevent it from happening. Oversight clearly was
lacking for an extended period of time.

Such amateurish mistakes in a city department as important as the
police should not be allowed to tarnish the reputation of every
employee of the police department, including its civilian as well as
its commissioned personnel. But they can only serve to undermine
public confidence in the Herenton administration as a whole.