POLICE PROPERTY RULES REMAIN UNCLEAR

Memphis police may have labored for three years under the false belief
that a cancer in the department's property and evidence room had been
conquered. Even today the prognosis is not clear.

Officials of the department are reluctant to discuss the details of
any changes that have been made since federal indictments were
returned against five former or then-current civilian employees
accused of stealing drugs and money late last year.

Memphians would like to believe that the property room isn't being
used as a major recycling bin for confiscated drugs and other property
seized by the police, but new doubt has been cast on that prospect.

According to Dennis Dycus, director of the municipal audit division in
the state comptroller's office, a 1999 audit amounted to a scathing
indictment of property room procedures.

Responding to a similar investigation of the police department's
Organized Crime Unit, auditors reported a litany of problems in the
property room, including the lack of tags on evidence, open evidence
packages and poor record keeping. They made specific recommendations
about how to correct the problems.

As evidence emerges in the case of former property room employee
Kenneth Dansberry, however, it is clear that huge amounts of property
were stolen from the room for more than three years after the critical
report. The audit, it appears, was not treated with the sense of
urgency that it deserved.

A 12-page account of Dansberry's thefts of drugs and money, revealed
in federal court, portrayed a distressing lack of institutional
control after 1999 that allowed the $33,000-a-year civilian police
department employee to live comfortably in a well-to-do Cordova
neighborhood with a substantial collection of nice cars.

Dansberry, who has not yet been sentenced, was indicted last fall
following his arrest with more than $1 million in his possession. One
of 16 people charged in the theft and distribution scheme, Dansberry
pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy, money laundering and
other financial crimes last week.

His story is a familiar one to experts on the vulnerability of
property rooms and the extraordinary steps that have to be taken to
keep them secure.

A longtime clerk who eventually rose to the position of shift
supervisor, Dansberry had a family, a clean record and a winning
personality. In 2000, a former employee of the property room allegedly
recruited him to steal drugs, and before long he was handing off
shipments of cocaine to collaborators from a loading dock.

He allegedly gave $100,000 in payoff money to two property room
employees, took the women on a $2,500 shopping spree and gave their
husbands cash and tickets to an NBA all-star game.

When he was finally caught, he told his story to investigators but
couldn't remember how many times he had betrayed the trust that he had
earned over two decades of service. The acts had become easy and
routine. At one point he wheeled 200 pounds of marijuana out of an
evidence room and sold it at the police impound lot.

Perhaps no one should be surprised that some people placed in charge
of vast amounts of drugs and other easily marketable property would be
unable to resist temptation from time to time.

But the scope of the Memphis Police Department case is stunning. And
citizens are left to hope that more frequent audits, regular polygraph
tests or other measures have been instituted to reinforce property
room security.

More information may be forthcoming when the results of a second audit
conducted by Dycus's office in December are released.

Police should be commended for bringing federal authorities into the
investigation when it became clear that the property and evidence room
had leaks.

Confidence in the police department would get another boost if it
could be reported that the room will never again become a major
distribution center for confiscated drugs and other goods.