October 8, 2025 Specail Meeting

So we've had a number of folks within the community that had raised some concerns about the cost for bringing our evidence room into compliance and for the work that took and maybe even concerned about the amount of resources that were needed to bring those evidence rooms into compliance. I don't think the general public under the previous administration; and by that I'm referring to previous Police Chief Ron Kiner and under his tenure and maybe even a few before him, the condition of the evidence rooms that were there. A great chunk of the work has been done.

I understand that we're still in process with some of the instruction orders and things of that nature and paperworks being handed off to the prosecutor's office or has been, and that a good amount of the work at this point has been done and we're in a little bit of a holding pattern on some of those things until we get clearance on some of those destruction orders. We had Doug Swartz in to speak to what him and his team have found.  He going to just be forthright with us on the condition of things that were over there and the amount of work that had and has to be done yet.

Doug Schwarz is the owner of Police Evidence Audits. This statement is quoted from Doug;

" 'During our assessment, we found evidence stored in several areas of the building. One location with a damp closet down in the basement that had been locked, but lacked proper environmental controls and organization. Items were stacked haphazardly with little or no labeling. Some items had no identification, no report reference, no way to establish a chain of custody or tie to any criminal case. We also located an upstairs place that showed some sort of effort at organization. There were handwritten logs and items loosely sorted by year suggesting that someone at some point tried to bring order to the system. However, the records were incomplete.  The logs contained discrepancies and the overall structure did not meet any recognized evidence management standard. Particularly as concerning, we located what appear to be sexual assault evidence stored in random upstairs closet under piles of paperwork. That potential DNA evidence has no court evidentiary value as the chain of custody is fragmented.

 We also found untested sex assault kits. Those kits should have been submitted to testing under Ohio Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, especially if they predate 2015. At that time, the Ohio Attorney General Journal directed all agencies to submit every untested kit for DNA. Failure to do so represents a missed opportunity for justice for potential victims and a violation of the state's intended procedure. 

Because of the unsafe conditions and lack of accountability, we removed all evidence from the basement and staged it upstairs in a secured area.  We had five people that came in and move all that and work through this process of establishing credibility.

We created a new Excel-based inventory to capture every item noting any available information such as case number, suspect name or lab identifier. After cross referencing this information with available court and RMS data, we found that more than 70% of the items lack sufficient documentation to connect them to some specific case or a jurisdiction. One example is an uncapped syringe. It was found sealed in a plastic bag with no case reference; a direct safety hazard and a total breakdown in chain of custody. Unfortunately, this is representative of the evidence as a whole.

We are now entering the pre-destruction phase, identifying items that may qualify for lawful disposal. We have done what we can in connecting  evidence to case dockets. However, the courts cannot authorize any destruction until internal policies are in place to govern the process. The ORC language is very specific on the instructions and you have to have internal direction and policies and procedures in place to basically operate as a police department.  There were no policies that we could find that directly linked to some sort of direction from leadership on how the police department should be run. So that is what we're currently doing right now and that's why it's essential that Lieutenant Flinner move forward with obtaining Lexipol Policies and Procedures which will establish the department's foundation for evidence control and retention. Once that's complete, we'll assist in developing a specific disposal and destruction policy that meets both Ohio and IPA standards. Attempts at returning property to rightful owners will also be very difficult with a severe lack of documentation on the packages; if it was packaged.

I want to make an important point about leadership.  While these conditions clearly reflect poor oversight in the past, I also want to acknowledge that many chiefs across the country receive no formal training and evidence room for management. These rooms are often locked doors because they're not part of daily patrol administrators functions and they're easy to overlook until something goes wrong. In that sense, I don't believe the intent was neglect. I believe it was a lack of awareness, a lack of resources. That said, the end result remains unacceptable.

Evidence is the foundation of justice. When it's compromised, the entire system is at risk and that's the condition that we found; it's all at risk. The good news is that the Village of Shreve is now on the right track. The evidence is removed from unsafe conditions. The new evidence room is clear and secured. We expect to have barcode printer and scanner installed, which will mark the beginning of a true digital tracking system, protect the chain of custody for every item going forward.  This will bring the department in line with the best practices and ensure the future is protected and traceable from intake to final disposition. But real progress has been made and for the first time in many years, Shreve's evidence management system will be both defensible and transfer in closing.' '

Doug presented these findings to help us be committed to supporting the corrective steps that will bring the department into full compliance and to restore public confidence.

" 'Just to expand upon there being 70%  of the items lacked sufficient documentation to connect them to any case process and that there's clear ORC language for operating an evidence room, how we safeguard them and none of that was being followed and especially concerning would be the sex assault kits.

That's a mandate by the governor that should have taken place and never did and that needs to be a priority for the police department! We segregated all those kits and put them in boxes to get those analyzed at a proper lab as soon as possible.' "

A council member commented that it is a massive amount of work and with a huge need. In other words, the ladies that got raped or anything got no justice; those kids didn't get any justice, they were just lost in the system. I don't think you can put all the blame on one person though, I mean I realize I'm not here to throw anybody under the bus, but what has been painted, is the idea that this wasn't bad enough to warrant spending $34,000. Those that were responsible left it in a state that it did take $34,000 and a lot of manhours that still isn't done to bring things into compliance.

It's going to take real work and responsibility, dedication, and a clear policy and procedure along with the digitalized system for logging that evidence to ensure a chain of command and security, so that moving forward those that rely on the Shreve Police Department, do have some sense of justice other than somebody showing up. Nobody's trying to attack anybody.  I'm simply taking the spotlight and going rather than having all of the rumor mill swirl and Shreve just putting it into the sunlight and going; 'Here's what we were dealing with and here's what was required to bring it into compliance and not blaming one certain person'. It's not about that at all, but a very serious issue and something that we desperately needed to have taken care of if we're going to operate a police department.

Some crucial steps. but to your point, it's been a problem for a long time. What we're going to end up with is a clean slate, a good system moving forward, and somebody over there as a Chief of Police who is going to be able to see that process is maintained and followed so we don't ever end up in this situation again.

Legislature

Resolution 12-2025: Appointing Police Officer Larry Flinner III part time police officer to Village of Shreve Chief of Police.

Police Hiring Ad

We will also be posting hiring ad for one full-time and one part-time police officer for the Village of Shreve. Larry has some ideas where he thought would be a good place to post those. Ones that are in retirement age officers that have been in the force for a long time might be interested in being a part-time police officer. We have different options for posting the jobs for the police department.

House Bill 51  allows retired officers to come back into the workforce and maintain their pension checks without losing benefits. This law only applies to the officers that use the Municipal Police Employees Retirement System or MPERS, which most officers go through.

The new law now allows retired officers to re-enter the workforce without losing benefits. Previously the laws made it really hard for reitred police officers to go back into workforce which made it hard on departments and the officers. This law lets the retired officers come back to work; without losing their benefits, with the wisdom, knowledge help train the younger ones that are just starting out as an officer.

There's many ways that this law can help, with the nationwide shortage of law enforcement manpower. But there are stipulations though to the law:

you have to have 20 years of retirement and be 55 years of age, or you have to have 25 years of retirement and you can re-enter the workforce at any age.  You could put them in the detective division, the intelligence division, help with homicides, help with non-fatal shootings, because you know that in the bigger cities most officers have been involved in solving these types of crimes.

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