The new evidence custodian at Illinois’ Tilton Police Department had not been on the job long in 2022 before making an alarming discovery: Items were missing from the “destruction barrel” in the department’s property vault – including a 9mm handgun.
The officer contacted their predecessor, David Cornett, who happened to be the department’s recently retired chief. Cornett said he’d taken the firearm home for safekeeping – a set of keys to the vault had recently gone missing, and he didn’t want whoever had them to have access to it.
His wife returned the missing gun, but state police investigated and found Cornett in improper possession of two other firearms as well. He faced three felony theft charges, with potential sentences of 364 days each. The charges were reduced to misdemeanors, Cornett pled guilty, and in August he got two years of probation. Several other charges, including three counts of theft from a law enforcement agency, were dismissed in the deal.
While Cornett avoided incarceration, “People do go to jail for stuff like this on a regular basis, including lots and lots of chiefs,” said Joseph L. Latta, executive director and lead instructor for the International Association for Property and Evidence Inc. (IAPE). “When it comes to thefts, we don’t have good internal controls. Departments have no idea how easy it is to go into most property rooms and steal something. They probably won’t even know it’s missing until somebody needs it for court or it’s requested by an owner. And if a case has been over for 10 years, nobody’s ever going to be looking for it.”
Given the value of items police often hold – cash, drugs, firearms, electronics and more – those rooms need significant levels of security.
PROBLEM HAS TWO ASPECTS
That security challenge has two aspects: people and physical measures.
The people put in charge of property and evidence rooms are often well-intended employees who lack sufficient background or training.
“We’ll assign an officer to take care of this stuff, and they’ll have absolutely no experience whatsoever in taking care of stuff,” said Latta, a veteran of 17 years overseeing the property room at the Burbank Police Department in California. “Once in a while you find somebody who was a quartermaster in the military or something, but with most of your evidence rooms out there, the person goes into it with no experience in warehousing, logistics, accounting, anything like that. They just throw ’em in there and expect them to take care of it.”
There’s training available, but smaller and budget-constrained departments may not be able to access it. Property officers may also be short timers who rotate positions or part-timers who must balance other duties. Almost half of U.S. police departments employ fewer than 10 full-time equivalent sworn officers.
A department’s size often impacts physical security measures too. Larger and better-funded departments may have secure, spacious facilities for evidence and property, access-controlled and guarded by video. Other departments may make do with more modest solutions.
“It’s likely there are a whole bunch of property rooms out there that are just closets overseen for an hour a week by somebody who primarily does something else,” Latta said. “Those situations can be susceptible to problems.”
The International Association of Chiefs of Police offered some guidance around the issue in a 2021 publication, “Property & Evidence Control.” It urges departments to articulate formal policies and procedures for storing evidence and other items and have security measures “appropriate to the items in … custody.” Such measures may include lists of personnel with authorized access; video surveillance; an alarm system; an access log; and mechanisms to audit and test security measures.
Potentially hazardous or sensitive items like biohazards, explosives, drugs, and firearms, the IACP notes, must be stored under safe and correct conditions.
MORE THAN A GYM LOCKER
Within property rooms and elsewhere, lockers and lockboxes like those from Tufloc can provide a safe, simple, and cost-effective way to keep valuable contents protected and intact.
Suitable for the secure storage of high-value items like firearms, drug evidence, electronics and more, the company’s ModuBox line of various-size lockers and smaller lockboxes is welded from heavy-gauge steel with custom-designed high-security locks from Medeco that use hard-to-duplicate angle-cut keys. These and other Tufloc products are widely used across law enforcement and the U.S. military.
“They’re somewhere between a gym locker and a safe,” said Mike Waryas, the company’s president. “It’s not folded steel that you can punch and dent. And the cylinder is a key component – you will not be able to pry them open like you could an inexpensive locker or lockbox.”
ModuBox lockers are 15¼ inches across and 18 inches deep and come in an array of heights from 12 to 60 inches. The lockboxes are 14 inches wide by 14 inches deep, 8⅝ or 15⅝ inches high. Both are stackable and configurable and can be freestanding, installed in-wall, or mounted to a wall, desk, floor, or other fixed surface.
“Based on the height and number of compartments, you can basically configure these however you want,” explained Waryas. “They have predrilled holes in the top and bottom with rubber stoppers, so just pop those off, and you can bolt them right together.”
Lock cylinders can be keyed alike, keyed differently, or master keyed. Key drops can be added to any model. Pass-through lockers are available on some models. Tufloc can also handle custom requests.
While ModuBox lockers are primarily intended for station use, the company’s smaller lockboxes and TufBox security drawers are also suitable for vehicles and even use in the home, where officers may need to secure firearms and other job accoutrements. They are also an option for smaller items in the station.
The company has a range of related offerings to keep important items protected, including gun racks for work, home, and travel; seat organizers; and high-security locks.
SUPPORT FOR BEST PRACTICES
There is a lot more that goes into securing a modern property/evidence room. Latta also recommends keeping them on the first floor, with hardened walls and doors, no windows, good ventilation, and away from other offices. Guns in evidence should be under separate lock and key; other items should be segmented. Small items should be kept in bags or envelopes and filed together to be easily accessed. “Probably 70% of the items that come in, you can store in different size envelopes,” he noted. Cameras should go on the door and on any location storing guns, money, or narcotics.
Lockers and lockboxes can be a viable addition within these rooms, as well as elsewhere. The key to using such storage successfully, Latta says, involves keeping the environment orderly, so you do not have to dig for items buried under other things.
“When lockers start filling up, if you try to go retrieve something, you don’t want to end up moving 10, 20, 30 items out,” he noted. “It needs to be easy to find things.”
ModuBox lockboxes have padded interior shelves to protect belongings. Tufloc’s multidoor lockers and lockboxes facilitate separate storage of handguns and can support sorting of evidence types. “We have a six-door unit on the lockers and an eight-door unit on the lockboxes that could be ideal for handguns,” said Waryas. “The lockers are larger and can hold items like clothing and long guns.” Tufloc can also install its gun storage systems in the lockers.
In property and evidence rooms, pass-throughs can be especially useful for intaking items, and lockers are well-suited for the temporary storage of items being transferred.
“If I’m designing a building, I want a pass-through,” said Latta. “I want the officer to put things in the locker, close the door, and their evidence custodian be able to take them out the back side. If the officer can’t get back in, it can’t be tampered with.”
Guidance from the IAPE recommends lockers for temporary storage be placed on a common wall with the property room and protect items from tampering, theft, and cross-contamination. Wet and biohazard items should be kept separate, and construction materials should be nonporous and able to be decontaminated. With overnight and longer-term storage, security must be sufficient to keep the chain of custody intact, even if no personnel are working during certain hours.
With the ModuBox line of lockers and lockboxes, departments can be sure to meet those requirements.
For more information, visit Tufloc.
