Page 378 - NIXBOOK

We had a lot of well-meaning citizens turn in lost and found bicycles to our department. Actually they’d just call and ask for a
patrol officer to come pick up bicycles that had been taken for joyrides and ditched in their yards or parking lots or whatever.
Some years, we’d average one found bike every 2 or 3 weeks. Bicycles take up a lot of space. Just about every single one of them
was in pretty poor condition and the owners probably always knew it so they were probably glad somebody stole them. The
return rate of found bicycles was less than 1 percent. Meaning for every 100 bicycles we recovered, only 1 would be returned to
the owner. The other 99 owners didn’t care enough to ever check with us to see if we had found their bikes. Did I mention
bicycles take up a lot of space? We had to throw them in a big pile out in the large storage shed in the back parking lot.

Because officers were constantly putting more new items in the evidence lockers that I had to take out and file - like several
items per week – I had to schedule a rotation system to get rid of old evidence. Of course this required clearance from the
prosecutor’s office, to assure the items weren’t needed for court in any way.

We had a large collection of handguns and rifles in there. When they were cleared to be destroyed, I took them over to the
Public Works shop and the mechanic there cut them all in half with a big metal chop saw.

The first time I did a big clean out of the evidence room, I filled a couple of large garbage bags full of evidence of all kinds, but
most of it was drugs seized from people off the streets; small baggies of marijuana and meth and various assorted pills and a lot
of smoking pipes and lighters and things of that nature. Most of the drugs were disposed of handily by me when I discovered I
could simply dump them down into the storm drain in our back parking lot. (there were less rules and regulations back then,
sorry) But I had to get rid of a lot of the evidence bag packaging which was sometimes in several layers of different kinds of
paper and plastic bags; after a while it all takes up space. So I filled a couple bags full of empty packaging and took them over to
the public works department where one of the garbage truck drivers let me throw them into the back of a garbage truck. He
turned on the hydraulic back scooper/masher/compactor thing and the truck ate the bags and shoved them deep into itself. The
truck was already full with garbage from dozens of earlier pickups from city businesses and homes and as I saw the bags get
mashed into there and saw who knows what kinds of liquids drip out from the compacted mass, I thought for sure they were
gone forever.

The next day the director of the public works department was a little confused when he called me to report finding random
police evidence packaging bags scattered and hidden in some of their office garbage bins. I hustled over there and with wide
eyes confirmed they had been in the two large black plastic garbage bags that I had personally watched the garbage truck
swallow.

Well clearly some employee there had gone back later and retrieved those bags from the truck. I don’t think there were any real
measurable amounts of drugs in there; so the culprit could only lick residue from some of the bags. We later found out it who
it was. He got then fired for some other offenses and so he then went home and ate a bullet from his .38 revolver. His head got
blown back so hard into the wall he was up against that it left a dent in the wallboard.