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Each month, IAPE's primary instructor, Joe Latta, answers one of your questions. Consider writing us if you have a question that needs an answer. We would love to hear from you.

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Question:

Dear Joe, 

I recently attended your property and evidence class in Fort Worth, Texas.  At that time I had only been in the property room for several weeks and wasn't really sure of where to get started.  When I was assigned to the property room, the previous property officer had retired and I had no idea what to do or, where to start

After attending your class and listening to the discussion on the importance in conducting inventories, I immediately went back and, with the blessing of my chief, did a 100% inventory in about three weeks.

When I was all done with the inventory, I located about a dozen items on the shelf with no labels, tags, or identifiable features that I could possibly determine what case the property or evidence belonged to. 

I am reaching out to ascertain if you have any recommendations on how I might handle these items that are in my property room with no way to link to a case.

Sincerely,

Losta Labels

Answer:

Dear Losta Labels,

• First of all, ensure that each one of the descriptions of the items was run as a search in the property room computer, assuming you have one.  This may be a waste of time, but now you can document that you, in fact, researched every item in the property system.  

• Does the department have a UTL (unable to locate) file?  There is always the possibility that one of the UTL items may match up with that item on the shelf without a label.
• Does your records management system have a search capability that may allow you to look for those described items?

• If you have located a firearm, have you run it in all of the national and state databases?  When it comes to firearms, a great resource for going to find those guns maybe your local Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) representative.

Suppose that you have completed all your research and you are still unable to link any of the items to a case(s) within your department's record system.  My next suggestion would be to write a Found Property or incident report that would outline whatever steps you have taken and then list all of the identified items in the report.  In addition, I would re-tag each item and identify them as Found Property.   After the statutory time for retaining Found Property has elapsed, you may then destroy, divert or auction the item(s) as you would with any other piece of property.

Note: if you don't do this, those items will still be on the shelf the next time you are conducting an inventory.  You may also want to digitally photograph each item for a long-term record and attach to the report.  If someone is looking for a particular piece of evidence five years from now, you can document that the item you disposed of and the photograph may suffice for that particular inquiry.

Joe Latta

Executive Director