Failure by Aurora, Colo., police officers to properly follow protocol has resulted in the destruction of evidence in at least 48 sexual assault cases, the Denver Post reports. Officials are continuing their investigation to see if any other cases have resulted in contaminated evidence.
According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes, with about 54 percent of sexual assault crimes going unreported. The group says that even when sexual assault cases are reported, the chance the assailant will be arrested and prosecuted is slim. In those cases where there is an arrest, only about 3 percent of rapists will be sentenced to time in prison.
Though the errors were discovered two weeks ago, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates publicly announced the news of the destroyed evidence at a press conference on Tuesday. He said the affected evidence was collected as part of investigations into sexual assault cases that occurred in 2009. The evidence was destroyed during a six-month time frame that began in January, he said.
Oates said the officers’ failure to follow protocol was “a grievous mistake” and that in one of the 48 cases, investigators were close to an arrest thanks to the DNA evidence they had collected. But now that the evidence is no longer available, the investigators will have to start from square one, Oates told reporters.
“Obviously this is not a good day for the department,” Oates said. “This is a big mistake.”
Tampered evidence is not unique to Aurora’s police department. In fact, it is a national problem.
Earlier this year, a local Ashland, Mass., news team announced that police Sgt. Ed Pomponio had destroyed drug evidence without authorization before the case went to court.
Reports obtained by ABC affiliate WCVB found that a handgun from a different case went missing and was sold before the case went to trial.
An attorney for John Driscoll, the Ashland police officer who alerted state officials that the department had been tampering with evidence, said the issue was very serious.
“It becomes a situation where there’s the possibility of manipulation of evidence so that people who should be properly prosecuted can’t or won’t be because evidence is destroyed, and that’s the allegation in this case — that this evidence was destroyed, this case was dismissed and no one can establish today, at least, what the motive was, but I’m sure the district attorney’s office will be looking into that,” the attorney, Timothy Burke, told WCVB.
How did this happen?
According to the Denver Post, the Aurora Police Department collects about 50,000 pieces of evidence and property every year. To make space for new evidence, the department has to dispose of old evidence.
In 2009, police officers in the Aurora Police Department’s Property and Evidence Unit implemented new, more restrictive policies for disposing and destroying evidence. For example, before evidence could be destroyed in a sexual assault case, the lead detective was required to conduct a follow-up review. However, that never happened.
There were also restrictions on who could destroy and dispose of evidence, but those policies were not followed either. Most of the evidence that was destroyed in the sexual assault cases was done by an officer who was not supposed to handle the disposal of evidence.
Unable to prosecute
While Oates said that many of the cases would not have been prosecuted anyway, since several of the victims had decided to not pursue their cases, he did have to inform some victims that their accused attackers could no longer be prosecuted.
According to the Denver Post, Oates, along with prosecutors from the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, met with one of the sexual assault victims whose case was affected by the destroyed evidence.
Oates said the victim was “gracious and understanding.” He even went so far as to say she was “more understanding than I would have been in that situation.”
Oates said that damage to the evidence was likely due to improper training.
“We will do all that we should to fix this problem,” he said. “No one — including that officer — intended this outcome. It was a mistake.”
Oates says the focus will now turn to the possibility that evidence may have been destroyed in other cases. Oates reasoned that because sexual assault cases are highly important cases, those were reviewed first, but now the department will extend its review to see if any other cases are affected.
Sean McDermott, the president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, told the Denver Post that he was pleased that Oates took ownership for the errors. He said he was also pleased to hear the police department had selected an expert panel — made up of representatives from the state attorney general’s office, a DNA expert and prosecutors from the 17th and 18th district attorneys’ offices — to independently review the cases that were possibly affected.
“When evidence is lost, it is not only about the conviction of the guilty but the freedom of the innocent,” McDermott said.
Once it finishes its review of the evidence, the panel will make recommendations to the Aurora Police Department.