07-06-2006, 10:04 AM
Belle Glade evidence woes could affect cases
By Dwayne Robinson
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 06, 2006
BELLE GLADE — A disabled man spent a week in jail and six months on house arrest while investigators tried to compare his DNA with a child he was accused of fathering with an underage girl.
"This is something in the modern world that we should be able to find out in a few weeks," said Paul Caruso, an attorney with the Palm Beach County Public Defender's Office.
In Belle Glade, however, it took a few months — mostly because the police department lost the DNA evidence. Twice.
When finally tested, the DNA proved the jailed man was not the father. And the charges were dropped.
This is just one example of how the Belle Glade Police Department's lackluster evidence gathering and oversight have damaged criminal prosecutions and threatened the freedom of the innocent, said attorneys from the local public defender's office and the state attorney's office.
"People are sitting in jail because of incompetence," Caruso said.
A grand jury released a report May 31 critical of the department's investigation into the Oct. 7 nightclub shooting of Derrick Bryant of Clewiston. Grand jurors found a police organization rife with problems, including officers not collecting or later losing crime scene evidence.
Following the police investigation, Darren Hatcher, 35, a felon from Clewiston, was jailed for a month on what the grand jury considered to be insufficient proof.
Many more cases could be called into question.
The most recent incident of alleged police bungling could affect homicide or rape prosecutions, for example. Police officers, in transferring evidence from the hurricane-battered police complex to their new offices at the Lake Shore Civic Center, left behind a refrigerator and other property, acting Police Chief Calipto Gonzalez said. A sample of the evidence left behind includes rape kits, blood, bicycles and a knife, bat and pipe believed to have been used in aggravated assaults around the city, he said.
Last month, officers discovered the refrigerator on the first floor of a building in the old police complex, decommissioned after Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004. The bicycles and other items were on the second floor, Gonzalez said.
Suspended Police Chief Albert Dowdell had also ordered property in an evidence room at 40 W. Canal St. transferred to storage bins at the civic center after a February burglary, when thieves reportedly stole 120 guns and other police evidence.
Gonzalez, who was assigned to investigate the theft shortly after arriving in the city as a sergeant, says he was unaware any evidence remained elsewhere on site.
No police evidence remains there now, Gonzalez added.
"I don't think it (the evidence) was anything ongoing," Gonzalez said. Regardless of whether the evidence was from old investigations or not, it could later exonerate the wrongfully accused, he said, which is why the department must preserve its integrity.
Neither Dowdell nor his attorney Dan Paige would comment. City Manager Houston Tate suspended Dowdell on May 31, following the grand jury report.
Dowdell has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence..
Prosecutors served the city with a subpoena in June to view the city's evidence. Gonzalez said some evidence, located in three storage bins near the civic center, was not properly labeled, not in their proper containers or missing.
But Belle Glade officers have discovered some of those missing materials through a Dowdell-initiated plan to re-catalog police evidence, Gonzalez said.
Officers have processed one of the three bins, and Gonzalez expects the rest to be done by early August. By then, the city should have a better sense on what prosecutions, if any, were affected by the break-in and subsequent transfer of evidence.
Still, officials in city hall and the police department say they have no information on a police refrigerator reportedly full of evidence that was without power for a considerable period after Hurricane Wilma.
Belle Glade-based Assistant State Attorney Rob Shepherd said he has demanded a report on the refrigerator and its content to no avail.
And if prosecutors are unable to show evidence remained in police custody, officers run the risk of unwittingly opening the jailhouse doors.
"It's imperative that it does not get tainted," Gonzalez said. "If evidence gets tainted, then we give the public defender or an attorney an open door on how to throw a case out of court."
Prosecuting and defense attorneys say the city's law enforcement has suffered for years because of a lack of resources in this predominantly black, mostly poor rural community on the edge of Lake Okeechobee.
The tipping point, Caruso said, was when the department lost its police station in 2004.
"They are working in a bunker," he said. "They don't have equipment. They don't have staff. They don't have a building."
Worse yet, voters blocked a proposed $10 million bond to build a new city hall with a site for the police department in 2005.
Now, city officials are considering a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office takeover of its department.
The city commission is expected to approve the contract at 10 a.m. Monday.
By Dwayne Robinson
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 06, 2006
BELLE GLADE — A disabled man spent a week in jail and six months on house arrest while investigators tried to compare his DNA with a child he was accused of fathering with an underage girl.
"This is something in the modern world that we should be able to find out in a few weeks," said Paul Caruso, an attorney with the Palm Beach County Public Defender's Office.
In Belle Glade, however, it took a few months — mostly because the police department lost the DNA evidence. Twice.
When finally tested, the DNA proved the jailed man was not the father. And the charges were dropped.
This is just one example of how the Belle Glade Police Department's lackluster evidence gathering and oversight have damaged criminal prosecutions and threatened the freedom of the innocent, said attorneys from the local public defender's office and the state attorney's office.
"People are sitting in jail because of incompetence," Caruso said.
A grand jury released a report May 31 critical of the department's investigation into the Oct. 7 nightclub shooting of Derrick Bryant of Clewiston. Grand jurors found a police organization rife with problems, including officers not collecting or later losing crime scene evidence.
Following the police investigation, Darren Hatcher, 35, a felon from Clewiston, was jailed for a month on what the grand jury considered to be insufficient proof.
Many more cases could be called into question.
The most recent incident of alleged police bungling could affect homicide or rape prosecutions, for example. Police officers, in transferring evidence from the hurricane-battered police complex to their new offices at the Lake Shore Civic Center, left behind a refrigerator and other property, acting Police Chief Calipto Gonzalez said. A sample of the evidence left behind includes rape kits, blood, bicycles and a knife, bat and pipe believed to have been used in aggravated assaults around the city, he said.
Last month, officers discovered the refrigerator on the first floor of a building in the old police complex, decommissioned after Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004. The bicycles and other items were on the second floor, Gonzalez said.
Suspended Police Chief Albert Dowdell had also ordered property in an evidence room at 40 W. Canal St. transferred to storage bins at the civic center after a February burglary, when thieves reportedly stole 120 guns and other police evidence.
Gonzalez, who was assigned to investigate the theft shortly after arriving in the city as a sergeant, says he was unaware any evidence remained elsewhere on site.
No police evidence remains there now, Gonzalez added.
"I don't think it (the evidence) was anything ongoing," Gonzalez said. Regardless of whether the evidence was from old investigations or not, it could later exonerate the wrongfully accused, he said, which is why the department must preserve its integrity.
Neither Dowdell nor his attorney Dan Paige would comment. City Manager Houston Tate suspended Dowdell on May 31, following the grand jury report.
Dowdell has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence..
Prosecutors served the city with a subpoena in June to view the city's evidence. Gonzalez said some evidence, located in three storage bins near the civic center, was not properly labeled, not in their proper containers or missing.
But Belle Glade officers have discovered some of those missing materials through a Dowdell-initiated plan to re-catalog police evidence, Gonzalez said.
Officers have processed one of the three bins, and Gonzalez expects the rest to be done by early August. By then, the city should have a better sense on what prosecutions, if any, were affected by the break-in and subsequent transfer of evidence.
Still, officials in city hall and the police department say they have no information on a police refrigerator reportedly full of evidence that was without power for a considerable period after Hurricane Wilma.
Belle Glade-based Assistant State Attorney Rob Shepherd said he has demanded a report on the refrigerator and its content to no avail.
And if prosecutors are unable to show evidence remained in police custody, officers run the risk of unwittingly opening the jailhouse doors.
"It's imperative that it does not get tainted," Gonzalez said. "If evidence gets tainted, then we give the public defender or an attorney an open door on how to throw a case out of court."
Prosecuting and defense attorneys say the city's law enforcement has suffered for years because of a lack of resources in this predominantly black, mostly poor rural community on the edge of Lake Okeechobee.
The tipping point, Caruso said, was when the department lost its police station in 2004.
"They are working in a bunker," he said. "They don't have equipment. They don't have staff. They don't have a building."
Worse yet, voters blocked a proposed $10 million bond to build a new city hall with a site for the police department in 2005.
Now, city officials are considering a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office takeover of its department.
The city commission is expected to approve the contract at 10 a.m. Monday.