CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — An internal audit of the Corpus Christi Police Department’s (CCPD) Property Room has prompted city officials to evaluate how evidence is stored, secured, and managed. The report covers January 2023 through June 2024. Though it found no formal violations, the City Auditor made six key recommendations to enhance operations and safety.
CCPD says they've already implemented two of the recommendations. The first was purchasing a money counter for cash evidence. The cash count is conducted by hand by the Money & Jewelry Vault Custodian. This change will improve accuracy and efficiency.
The second was implementing a key vault to store locker keys. Previously, keys used for the open the night lockers were hanging on a wall and exposed; putting the keys at risk of being taken.
Property and evidence are stored by CCPD in outdated night lockers, with different locks requiring staff to use more than one key to open the lockers when retrieving items. The same ones have been used for more than 30 years. The lockers are frequently out of service, requiring maintenance. The department is encouraged to purchased new modern lockers. The purchase would be a one-time expense that would improve the department’s efficiency and offer more storage space for incoming items.
“What we’re looking at is an overhaul of that room and the lockers and the process that goes along with it. It’s going to involve not only us but bringing in asset management," CCPD Assistant Police Chief, Christopher White, said.
Water lines and other piping running along the ceiling of the property room warehouse were exposed without routine inspections. This could lead to malfunction, destroying property and evidence. The recommendation was to conduct those inspections more frequently.
“We work hard to maintain care and custody of our property that comes in here; evidentiary value and anything that falls into the responsibility of the PD," White added.
The city also wants CCPD to transition from using cardboard boxes to store evidence. Instead, they suggest changing to plastic totes for long-term evidence storage.
Among the more debated recommendations is an idea to auction off unclaimed, high-value firearms rather than destroy them. The City Auditor suggested this change could generate revenue for the department and the city.
“Those weapons were brought into us by officers in the field, as they were conducting an investigation in the field for criminal activity. To return those back to the public for profit is not something that the police department wants to be involved in," White said.
An idea, both CCPD and Audit Committee Chair and Councilmember At-Large, Roland Barrera, do not support.
“It would be wrong for us to be able to profit from a gun that was obtained in committing a crime,” Barrera said.
Barrera and White both emphasized that the firearms in question are typically seized during criminal investigations handled under strict protocols.
Barrera added that the Audit Committee will meet again in the future to review the progress of these recommendations and continue discussing ways to improve CCPD operations.
For the latest local news updates, click here, or download the KRIS 6 News App.
