Guns in police custody fell into criminal hands
Audit sealed for years also shows drugs missing
February 26, 2007
Sun-Times
I has the misfortune of being detailed to ERPS while recovering from an IOD (light duty) in the late 90's. When I had arrived the drug theft cases had already occurred. I worked in the drug vault and had routinely found drug bags misfiled. I would be willing to bet that a large portion of missing drugs was due to an archaic filing system and not necessarily theft.
Working in that place was one of the worst experiences I have yet to encounter on this job. Definitely a motivator to return to work.
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2 comments:
You can probably blame former PO John (Smitty) Smith for the guns that "escaped" ERPS and found their way back to the streets.
He was convicted a few years back of stealing bundles of coke, which he then sold to other drug dealers while he as assigned to ERPS. No doubt he wasn't alone, but obviously, supervision at ERPS back in those days was extremely lax (and of course, no bosses fell on the sword for the extreme lapses in supervision). I can recall going to a number of drug trials in which I was ordered to retrieve evidence from ERPS, only to discover that they couldn't locate it anywhere. Miraculously, many of those defendants' lawyers were willing to stipulate to the lab reports, and a majority of those bad guys were still convicted. "Smitty's" downfall came after he retired from ERPS, and people discovered he was living extremely high on the hog, with an exquisite Olympia Fields home, a new Lexus Sedan, a (used) Rolls Royce, and a multi-unit bldg. that he had completely gutted and rehabbed. Most of us who knew "Smitty" from the old days in 004 recall he didn't have much after his divorce, and lived in an apt. building on So. Shore Drive where quite a few search warrants were executed. According to published reports, "Smitty" protested his innocence all the way to prison, claiming he had been framed. If he had moved out of state and kept a low profile, they probably would never have been able to finger him for the thefts...flash = prison bars!!
Whigham was responsible for the hiding of the audit report. SSC has an interesting post regarding this problem.
The line at the bottom that ERPS was the biggest supplier of guns and drugs in the City is probably true.
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