During the July 18th, 2022 City Council meeting, Chief Riggs requested 12,000 dollars for an evidence refrigerator. During his explanation he stated that this refrigerator will help with storage of blood draw kits and compliance with the Texas Police Chief’s Association recognition program they are seeking to achieve.
Sadly, blood draw kits and modern sexual assault kits do not require refrigeration as they have preservatives in them:
Directly from the instructions page on the test kits:
Ship at room temperature. Specimen must be received within 48 hours of collection.
DO NOT freeze or refrigerate specimen.
Furthermore, the TPCA has no such guideline for a 12,000 dollar evidence refrigerator. Chain of custody is maintained through the processing of evidence in secured areas such as evidence rooms, not specific locations within them. Once custody of evidence is taken it is considered in the custody chain.
Here are the TPCA guidelines and recommended Best Practices: TPCA Best Practices
As you can see when you read these guidelines, there are no such requirements for the TPCA program.
There is nothing wrong with having great equipment. Justifying your equipment with half-truths will erode public confidence faster than a 92% increase in your part 1 crimes.
Council Member Wasson asked the right question, the reply was a bold faced lie. It seems as though the City Managers pick for Chief is not only a failure (see the 92% increase in Part 1 Crimes), he repeatedly does not tell the truth. Both should be fired.
Not to mention Singleton himself, the man who couldn’t keep his job at JVPD because…well, you know. He or the evidence tech is lying. There has been a refrigerator in the evidence room since at least 11/01/2010. A public information request has been made for the evidence logs to confirm this. As was said earlier, either Singleton is lying or the tech is. Either way, the PD has Brady issues from the top down.
The evidence logs will be published here for all the citizens of Jersey Village to see.