Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
The Denver Police Department’s handling of evidence in a murder case — in this case, a car — is so tragically inept that it could be something out of a movie script.
Unfortunately, it comes straight out of reality. The Keystone Kops episode threatens to undermine some of the progress the department has made in recent years in resurrecting its image and reputation.
At issue is a 1977 Oldsmobile that a young Denver woman bought at a police auction for just $400.
As Denver Post reporter Kieran Nicholson wrote, though the car had bullet holes and a flat tire, Vanessa Burdiaga thought that if she put a little cash into it, she could use it to get to some job interviews. It seemed like a great deal — until a detective showed up and told her that police needed the car back. Apparently, someone had died in the vehicle and it was evidence in a homicide.
We don’t think it will be very good evidence, since Burdiaga had — understandably — cleaned it up and threw out bloodied bandanas, two lengths of metal pipe and other items left in the car.
Uh, as it turns out, that was evidence, too, which police then pulled out of the garbage and carted away.
Police brushed off the embarrassing situation as “human error.” This is what Sonny Jackson, Denver Police spokesman, told The Post:
“The car was released in error by the sheriff’s office,” he said. “It’s a situation where somebody made a human error. We needed the vehicle back, so we went and recovered it.”
Not so fast, according to the Denver Sheriff’s Department. It may be human error, but the sheriff’s office wasn’t about to take the fall for it.
In a subsequent Post story, the sheriff’s office put the blame squarely back with Denver Police, saying they had failed to put a hold on the car.
It’s a serious mistake and unbecoming a professional police department.
Though it’s embarrassing, the real tragedy is that this mishandling of evidence, which appears to be important to a murder investigation, has the potential to jeopardize justice.
Maintaining the chain of custody for such evidence is crucial to the integrity of it. Police have to prove the evidence was kept secure so that no one could tamper with it. We trust defense lawyers and prosecutors in the case will be made aware of what happened to the evidence.
Thus far, Denver police have refused to disclose to the public details of the homicide case in which the car is evidence.
It wouldn’t be that they want to keep quiet the details of a case in which an accused killer might have to be pled down or set loose because of incompetence, would it? For that reason alone, we think the department has an obligation to disclose the case that the car is connected to.
As a community, we applaud instances of police heroism and mourn when something tragic happens to a member of the force. We also deserve to know the full ramifications of their mistakes.
