Press release here from the Asheville Police Department:
Statement from Chief Bill Hogan regarding a case of missing evidence:
The Asheville police department is fully cooperating with the District Attorney’s office and the State Bureau of Investigation to address a matter related to evidence located in the property room in the Asheville police department.
An instance of missing evidence related to a criminal drug offense prompted the investigation. A third party audit is forthcoming and evidence will be opened, examined and compared against logs to identify if this was an isolated case or if other evidence was compromised. The property room has been sealed and outside auditors will complete an inventory to verify and ensure the integrity of evidence.
The police department takes this issue very seriously. We are taking immediate corrective action to make sure all vulnerabilities are addressed.
As a department, we pride ourselves on integrity and professionalism. Above all we know the public trust is essential to our work. For that very reason there will be seamless cooperation with the SBI and the District Attorney’s office to ensure timely review and resolution of this issue.
In the interim, the men and women of the Asheville police department remain committed to providing the highest level of service to the community.
Lt. Wallace J. Welch
The Asheville Citizen-Times‘ James Shea has more detail. Snippet:
Buncombe County District Attorney Ron Moore requested the investigation, according to a spokeswoman from the Attorney General’s Office.
Moore wrote a letter to local defense attorneys today about the investigation. In the letter, Moore said that nearly 400 Oxycodone pills were missing from the evidence room.
He expressed his concerned about the missing evidence in February and requested a full audit of the room. Moore learned Tuesday that only a partial audit had been conducted that “revealed some issues of concern.”
“Apparantly some employees of A.P.D. were aware of these results, but no one notified the Office of the District Attorney,” Moore said in the letter.
WLOS reports tonight at 6 p.m. that several defense attorneys have filed motions because of this missing evidence, including attorneys representing the “Asheville 11”, a group of people arrested and charged last year with vandalism in downtown.
3 Comments
I wonder if Bill Hoagan will choose to spend his retirement years in Asheville. Local-your post shows how much smarter than liberals the true progressives are. We're sure you're right on all points. Everybody else just gets stupider and stupider.
And once again, all of you idiots out there who jumped to conclusions assuming the asheville 11 were guilty just cause this dumb fuck said they were are looking stupider and stupider. The APD and BC sheriffs are known for incompetence and over aggressive handling of protests, they routinely beat, taser, and pepper spray non violent marchers; they have killed a mentally retarded boy who was allegedly suicidal in front of his parents, and years ago they even beat two black Muslim APD officers that were off duty. all of you liberal fucks who have just moved to asheville jump to defend your utopian local businesses by condemning people who have little to no evidence against them need to really reconsider what it means to be progressive. these people are innocent and should be treated as such until they are (which i highly doubt will happen ) are convicted
Well, well, well ….
Isn't it odd that when this broke, less than 2 hours ago, the attorneys for defendants in Buncombe County Court on seemingly unrelated cases were ready to file suits as a result of this investigation … especially since there were no oxycodone pills involved in the so called "Asheville 11" arrests.