HPD seeks control over crime techs
Ploy ignores concerns about lab’s objectivity
Houston’s acting Police Chief Martha Montalvo, with the support of the powerful Houston Police Officers Union, has made a behindclosed-doors bid to take back control over the troubled Crime Scene Unit from the city’s independent forensic science lab.
The Crime Scene Unit is small but critical — its technicians gather and photograph evidence from all homicides, including incidents in which police officers use deadly force against civilians.
Montalvo’s move comes in the wake of a highly critical audit by three outside experts who concluded in July that crime scene investigators need increased independence from the Houston Police Department — not less — to objectively gather evidence in shootings involving HPD officers.
The audit focused on eight recent officer-involved shootings in 2016 and concluded that crime scene
analysts had in some cases been influenced in their evidence collection decisions by statements made by other officers at the shooting scene. The audit found that analysts had failed to properly collect evidence, including bullets, photos and samples, and needed more training. The unit is currently made up of a mix of sworn officers, who are members of the police union, and civilian lab employees overseen by a civilian director. Undermines confidence
Montalvo proposed taking back control over the unit at a private meeting earlier this summer with Nicole Casarez, a prominent criminal defense attorney who heads the advisory board of the independent crime lab, the Houston Forensic Science Center. Ray Hunt, the police union president, attended the meeting and fully supported the change. It’s on hold while lab operations undergo larger efficiency review ordered by Mayor Sylvester Turner, according to statements city officials have provided to lab board members.
“We have been in ongoing discussions with the Houston Forensic Science Center on HPD possibly taking back the Crime Scene Unit personnel, many of who are HPD officers who collect evidence,” Montalvo said Friday. “We’ve discussed some concerns on our end to help improve time efficiency on some crime scenes. It is important to note we continue to meet regularly, share dialogue on the matter and continue to have a good, positive working relationship among our agencies.”
The unit was split off from HPD two years ago when the department’s crime lab became independent — a change that at the time had the full support of former HPD Chief Charles McClelland as a way to build up public confidence in the quality of that lab, which had been involved in multiple scandals related to huge backlogs, untested rape kits and poor forensics.
McClelland, in an interview, said he did not think returning the unit to HPD was a good idea. “I don’t think it would build confidence in the public’s mind — absolutely not,” he said. “To solve the issue is to have extremely welltrained evidence technicians that are independent of HPD. … It doesn’t take an HPD officer to be an evidence technician — I think we can all agree on that.”
Casarez and other crime lab officials have said in interviews that returning the unit to HPD would likely hamper efforts to win its accreditation — and could undermine public confidence in the independence of the new lab itself, particularly in light of the recent audit.
Daniel Garner, of the Houston Forensic Science Center, commissioned the three outside experts to perform the recent audit after hearing complaints about analysts arriving late to crime scenes and about the quality of forensic work in two officer-involved shootings from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Turner has asked for a task force and a consultant to examine the efficiency of lab operations in general. Turner wanted a fresh look at the city’s relationship with the independent lab, said Steven David, a special assistant to the mayor. The timing of that review was unrelated to Montalvo’s request and is ongoing, David said.
Turner also is deciding who will be Houston’s next police chief, with Montalvo among the candidates.
Ultimately, any major change in lab operations would require the city of Houston and the crime lab’s own board to agree to amend their agreement and the city’s contract with the lab. City faces lawsuits
The debate over who should run the Crime Scene Unit and what experts concluded about its lack of independence is taking place as the city of Houston is facing civil rights lawsuits in federal court that criticize HPD for systematically failing to adequately investigate officer-involved shootings of unarmed people. HPD data and information cited in the lawsuit show that every intentional shooting involving a Houston officer since 2010 — more than 150 in all — has been found to be within department policy.
The Houston Police Department reported 32 officer-involved shootings in 2015 and 18 so far this year — far more than any department in the state, according to HPD’s statistics and data available under a new state law that requires such incidents to be tracked. Houston police have in recent years reported more incidents of potentially lethal use of force than were reported in New York or Los Angeles. From 2010-2015, officers shot and killed 78 people and wounded 133 others. About 17 percent of those shot by police were unarmed.
Civil rights groups and lawyers representing the families of unarmed civilians killed or injured by police have challenged HPD’s internal reviews of officer-involved shootings as biased.
Over the past five years HPD investigators or crime scene technicians appeared to have ignored, lost or failed to collect evidence that contradicted the shooting officers’ accounts in some of the most controversial recent cases involving unarmed civilians, according to HPD investigative and internal affairs reports.
Prior to creation of the independent crime lab, HPD directly controlled all functions of the crime lab and its Crime Scene Unit. Since the independent lab was created, the unit has been plagued with tension between its uniformed and civilian employees. Turnover has been high.
Before the split, homicide detectives were accustomed to calling Crime Scene Unit officers via cellphone. Now, civilian supervisors decide who goes to every scene.
The unit has been through internal reviews that have identified errors in the work of two HPD officers who did crime scene work in three different officer-involved shootings, according to its own reports.
Peter Stout, the crime lab’s chief operating officer, said it has recently focused on improving work at officer-involved shooting scenes because of public concerns and because of complaints made by the DA’s office about the work of one sworn HPD officer assigned to the unit. Stout said he already is using the recent audit to refine training and protocols.
“We have an interest in ensuring that all of the work we do is what we expect it to be: high quality and timely,” Stout said.
Whenever an officer shoots his or her gun, three different reviews commence — a homicide investigation; an HPD internal affairs review and a separate probe by the Civil Rights Division of the district attorney’s office. All of those investigations rely heavily on the Crime Scene Unit’s reports.
The DA’s office uses its own investigators to interview witnesses and document the scene, but crime scene technicians are the ones who generally photograph evidence and search for bullets, cartridges and other evidence that can be used to determine who did what, said Assistant District Attorney Julian Ramirez, supervisor of the office’s civil rights section.
“We rely on the work of the crime scene technicians in collecting and preserving evidence. We do not have our own crime scene technicians on staff,” he said. “We welcome continual efforts by the HFSCand the Homicide Division to improve their investigative processes. Thoroughness and objectivity on the part of everyone involved are essential to producing an investigation worthy of the public’s trust.” Work questioned
In May, Ramirez and another prosecutor raised questions about an HPD officer working as a crime scene analyst who failed to collect bullets and take key photographs at two different incidents involving officers in 2015, according to a crime lab review. In both cases, HPD officers had shot at armed suspects who survived the altercations.
In the first incident, on Oct. 9, 2015, records show that a 15-year-old suspect suffered multiple gunshot wounds after allegedly pointing a gun at a Houston police officer who was wearing his uniform but riding in an unmarked car. The juvenile was later charged with aggravated assault of the officer.
Records show that a prosecutor in the DA’s civil rights division complained that the crime scene officer failed to properly count or describe bullets and cartridge casings found at the scene, most of which were inside or near the officer’s car. Because of sloppy documentation in the crime scene report, prosecutors initially believed the juvenile did not fire his gun at the officer. Months later, when the cartridges from the scene were re-examined, it became obvious that the suspect did fire, Assistant District Attorney Allison M. Buess said in an email obtained through a records request.
The second incident questioned by prosecutors involved the same officer’s work at an incident near the Texas Southern University campus. A TSU officer had fired at an armed suspect after a shooting at an apartment complex, but missed. The officer was able to arrest the person, who by then had allegedly shot two other people, including an 18-year-old freshman who later died. Prosecutors complained that the crime scene technician did not photograph either the officer or the defendant’s weapon. Neither the crime scene technician nor a homicide detective collected the officer’s weapon and submitted it for testing, records show.