Mayor Richard J. Berry announced the closure Wednesday of an Albuquerque police evidence warehouse. The closure is expected to save taxpayers more than $110,000 a year.
Mayor Richard J. Berry announced the closure Wednesday of an Albuquerque police evidence warehouse. The closure is expected to save taxpayers more than $110,000 a year.
Since taking office in April 2005, Police Chief Ray Schultz has made organizing the police department’s evidence room one of his top priorities. When Schultz took office, the warehouse, located at 1500 First St. NW, was filled with more than 372,000 piece of evidence, most of which was unorganized.
For the past five years Albuquerque police have been working to organize the evidence and find a way to return the property to its rightful owner or dispose of it through police auctions. APD is expected to turn the keys of the warehouse over to its landlord on Thursday.
“This is a huge accomplishment for Chief Schultz and his staff,” Mayor Richard J. Berry said. “Not only does this save taxpayer money, but it also makes APD’s handling of evidence much more efficient.”
During the warehouse clean up, APD destroyed 11,000 firearms and 172,000 illegal items such as drugs. More than 10,000 items were returned to its rightful owners and more than $46,000 was raised through auctions. APD expects $15,000 more to be raised in an auction later this month. There were also 79,000 pieces of evidence from rape and homicide cases that were moved to APD’s Metropolitan Forensic Science Center on Second NW.
In 1990 APD entered into a lease agreement with American Furniture to rent the warehouse. Since then, nearly $2 million have been spent on its lease and utilities. It cost APD $58,000 a year for the lease and $5,000 a month for utilities, a security system and staff.
When Schultz became chief in 2005, the warehouse was in disarray. Property was not organized, barcoded or well kept. Schultz formed a special team of police employees to organize the warehouse. The team worked with prosecutors, judges, and city attorneys to develop a system to reduce the amount of evidence APD stores. On average 40,000 pieces of evidence come into APD’s lab each year.
“What we accomplished was no easy task,” Chief Schultz said. “So many people worked so long to get us to this point.”
