Police pursue missing-evidence case
Prosecutors say they find no justification for criminal charges against the officer involved in the removal of items from a storage facility.

By Tim Potter
The Wichita Eagle

The Wichita Police Department has conducted a criminal investigation into an allegation that one of its officers took items from a property and evidence facility over about a year and a half, Police Chief Norman Williams confirmed Thursday.

Williams and Kim Parker, a deputy district attorney, said prosecutors found that no charge was justified.

Still, an internal investigation into the allegation is under way, the police chief said.

Williams said he wanted to emphasize that no case has been compromised because of the items allegedly taken. He described the items as "junk" that was being discarded anyway, and Parker agreed.

But two prominent Wichita defense lawyers said they found the allegation troubling.

"This is supposed to be a secure area," lawyer Richard Ney said. "What does it say about the security of the facility? It raises a question about the procedures at the facility."

Another defense lawyer, Dan Monnat, said, "It calls the whole system of evidence preservation into question."

Meanwhile, the department is conducting an internal investigation to determine if any policy violations occurred and has taken preventive measures, Williams said, without elaborating.

"It's just one of those situations that involves poor judgment," he said.

The officer, whom Williams would not name, has not been disciplined, put on leave or reassigned, Williams said. That will depend on the outcome of the internal investigation.

The officer had volunteered to assist at the property and evidence facility, but working there was not the officer's main responsibility, Williams said.

The facility is located on Second Street downtown. The operation will be moving to larger quarters in coming months.

The allegation involves items that were supposedly taken over about a year and a half -- items that no longer had evidentiary value and were scheduled for destruction, Williams said.

Some of the items allegedly taken had already been put in trash containers, some of which were outside the secure area, he said.

Normally, he said, court orders declare when certain items can be destroyed. The facility gets rid of items when they are no longer needed to make room for items being preserved for ongoing cases.

The items at issue in the internal investigation could have included gun parts, maybe a trigger, for example, Williams said.

The issue arose, he said, when someone in the department raised an allegation of "what they thought was a criminal act and made their supervisor aware of it."

The allegation was made around February, and police presented the findings of their criminal investigation to prosecutors in April or May, Williams said. The case has been under internal investigation since about June.
 

Reach Tim Potter at 268-6684 or tpotter@wichitaeagle.com.

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