Dear IAPE Members and Sponsors, As we are starting to progress through the new millennium, a number of newsworthy issues are unfolding around the country that are having a dramatic impact on the way we perform our jobs in the property room. Unfortunately we sometimes have to endure certain events that discredit our profession, embarrass our agencies, and in some cases find law enforcement and support personnel being disciplined, losing their job, being indicted, and occasionally even being sentenced to jail or prison. The great irony is that sometimes these negative events can end up having some very positive effects on our profession. They may raise our awareness to some of the liabilities, hazards and potential disasters in our property rooms. They may prompt us to take action on an issue that has been languishing for the want of a little initiative. They may even cause us to realign a little slippage that may have occurred in our own moral compasses. If you have been following the national headlines for the past several months you surely have read about the Los Angeles Police Department being currently involved in one of the worst scandals in the department's history. Over 20 officers have been suspended, one imprisoned, over a half a dozen gang members have been released from prison, and the District Attorney is reviewing over 3,000 cases that may have been tainted by corrupt officers. It should be noted the initial investigation came from the theft of 8 pounds of coke from the property room. Just shortly before the arrest of fonner Officer Perez, a fonner California Department of Justice Narcotics Officer in Riverside, California was sentenced to prison for life and a $16 million fine for stealing 650 pounds of cocaine from his Department's narcotics lockers in their property room. This case has expanded to involve two California Highway Patrol Officers and a Sheriffs Deputy from Arizona. You might be asking how these events could have positive effects for those of us in the profession of property management. Well, last month I was invited to give a presentation to the California Police Chiefs at their annual "Cal-Chiefs Conference" in Monterey, California. It was an extremely humbling event to speak to over 300 Police Chiefs at once, but a tremendous opportunity to let the Police Chiefs of California understand that the property rooms in their Departments can ruin their careers! Much to my amazement, I got their attention quickly as I was able to give example after example of Chiefs who became "former Chiefs" over highly publicized property room issues. I challenged them to find out if they were at risk. I left the Conference firmly convinced that the vast majority of those California Chiefs have a new understanding about property room liabilities. After returning home I received not fewer than a dozen calls from property officers around the state all who had just about the same message: "Our chief visited my property room last week. You must have really scared him." Although my mission wasn't to scare them, our profession is much better off with Chiefs being scared but aware of property room liability, instead of comfortable and ignorant of the risk to their Department and their job. Yes, it took a major corruption scandal (the bad thing) to get their attention, but I think we have made believers of a lot of California Police Chiefs (the good thing)! 
Copyright © 2000 International Association for Property and Evidence, Inc. Reprinted from the Evidence Log, Volume 2000, Number 1, Page 2 |
