2005 report warned of HPD property room problems

More on the story of the 21 guns that turned up missing from HPD's property room: The Chronicle reports today that independent police department investigator Michael Bromwich had warned city officials two years ago that conditions in the property room could lead to lost evidence. "The property room currently uses a number of forms to track chain of custody," Bromwich wrote in a June 2005 report. "The forms are cumbersome and archaic and increase the chances of errors and the risk of misplaced evidence." That system was apparently at least partly to blame for the destruction of evidence from 33 criminal cases in 2000, the discovery of evidence from thousands of cases found in hundreds of mislabeled boxes in 2004 and the discovery of evidence from several criminal cases that defense attorneys might not have known about at trial in 2005. Oops.

The current situation involves 21 guns that have turned up missing from the property room since October. Two of the guns have been recovered — both from suspects in separate incidents — and the Chronicle has more on that, too. One of the guns was found on Roderick Davis, an 18-year-old convicted felon, during a drug investigation in late February; the other was recovered from Gustavo David Burr, a 22-year-old with a lengthy police record, during a traffic stop March 8. The Chron couldn't reach Davis for comment, but it did ask Burr where he got the gun, and he said it came from a friend. "He said he got it from his uncle, that it was from the streets," Burr said. No one seems to know where the 19 missing guns might be.

As for Ron Cobb and Allen Baquet, the two civilian HPD employees suspended from the property room, officials say they don't believe the two did anything wrong. Bob Thomas, a retired HPD sergeant who managed the property room in 1992, called Cobb — himself a retired officer — a "scapegoat," adding that he has had an exemplary record with the department. City Councilman Adrian Garcia said he "will be shocked" if a criminal allegation is made against Baquet, who has worked for HPD for 23 years. Baquet spoke to KTRK's Miya Shay yesterday, and though he couldn't say how the guns disappeared, he told Shay that "there's a thief in [the property room] and we need to find him."

Meanwhile, KHOU reports that unnamed police sources are blaming a spate of thefts at 61 Riesner, the HPD central station, on convicted felons who work for the city. Those thefts aren't directly related to the missing guns, but sources told Channel 11 they're symptomatic of what's going on in the department.