Freeman Klopott and Bill Myers, The Examiner
2008-01-09 08:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

District of Columbia police lost track of at least four years’ worth of criminal evidence after a power outage wiped out a computer database, The Examiner has learned.

Police ­Chief Cathy Lanier said the collapse of the computer database caused no permanent damage because the department has millions of paper files in its evidence warehouse to back up the digital system.

Teams of technicians are manually entering the log books into a restored hard drive to reconstruct the lost evidence files, the chief said.

Lanier said she has inherited many of her problems. The evidence database that collapsed, she said, was at least five years out of date.

“I walked into a police department that’s in the Stone Age,” she said. “I’m trying to get it into the 21st century.”

The revelation about lost electronic evidence files came on the same day the D.C. inspector general released a damning report on conditions in the city’s evidence warehouse. The inspector general found that police were stuffing evidence from crime scenes into a largely insecure building in far Southeast, where it was threatened by poor ventilation, leaking “biological” samples and plywood storage “vaults.”

For some observers, the ongoing problems in the evidence warehouse reveal a police department that’s not equipped to deal with modern policing.

“I’ve been there,” said District Council Member and Judiciary Committee Chairman Phil Mendelson, D-at large. “It’s a bubble-gum operation.”

Kris Baumann, who heads the police union, said the inspector general report offers is “a good glimpse” at the overall state of the department.

“We have mold problems in our districts, inoperable fire doors,” Baumann said. “It’s not safe and raises a host of questions about why.”

fklopott@dcexaminer.com

bmyers@dcexaminer.com