Need $31k? Try the dump

Need $31k? Try the dump
By George P. Hassett

   Jack Leutcher has opposed Acting Chief of Police Robert R. Bradley before. But this time he can’t, all the president of the patrolmen’s union can do is laugh and shake his head.
    Leutcher lobbied against the home rule petition that would take the chief’s job out of civil service and, essentially, make Bradley the city’s permanent top cop. Leutcher also disagreed with Bradley when the acting chief spoke on behalf of an ordinance to increase the fees private companies must pay to have police details.
    But when it comes to the $31,535 in seized cash that was mistakenly thrown out last week, Leutcher said he doesn’t blame his frequent foe.

     “What the hell,” said Leutcher. “I feel bad for the guy. It’s a tough spot, he was trying to do the right thing and the thing he was actually trying to prevent – losing evidence –happened. Nobody’s to blame but the system”
    An evidence clerk began locking seized cash in a broken desk in January, even though it is not attached to the other officers' furniture, said Bradley.
    Two officers assigned to the cleanup found the drawer unit leaning on its side May 8 and assumed it belonged in a dumpster with other office furniture being discarded. The evidence clerk who was using the drawer unit was not working that day, said Bradley.
When the clerk came in the next day, the two officers who had cleaned out the room excitedly showed her what they had done. That’s when police realized a mistake had been made.
     “A very bad mistake,” said Bradley in a statement.
That day police officials tracked the dumpster to a Waste Management Industries transfer station on McGrath Highway. They were told the trash and the drawer unit had been loaded on a 40-foot garbage trailer and hauled to a landfill in Rochester, N.H.
    “We dispatched two officers to New Hampshire on Wednesday morning to inspect the site, and they discovered that the contents of our dumpster had already been buried under hundred of tons of industrially compacted trash.  There’s no way to recover it, even with heavy equipment.  We know what it is and where it is, but we can’t get to it – and neither can anybody else,” said Captain Charles Femino.
  “They thought they’d be able to pick through the trash and, get their hands dirty, but still find it,” said Leutcher. “But those landfills are pushed down with such heavy machinery trying to go through it would be like trying to dig into McGrath Highway with a shovel.”
   Bradley said it would cost more to dig into the landfill with heavy machinery than the $31,535 in cash they would find. No other seized drugs or evidence was lost and Bradley said he was confident no pending cases would be compromised. There was no foul play involved either, he said.
  “The people involved have access to that room everyday and nobody was alone,” he said. “It’s an unfortunate case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.”
   Today, somewhere in Rochester, N.H., under tons and tons of trash, lies a small fortune. But the lost $35,535 is not going to be found anytime soon, said Leutcher.
   “Someday, some archaeologist studying our civilization may come upon all that cash, but until then I think we’re out of luck,” he said.

Comments

[DickyBird]

I still have that land in Florida or mabe a bridge

[Krarken]

Mabe if the dig they might find Jimmy Hoffa, or another skeleton?

[What we should throw instead of money]

No if, ands, and butts, except plenty of cigarette Butts about it. A lot of local Bars don’t clean up. One of the consequences of the smoking ban has been that our cities streets have started to become covered in smoking butts. They are a litter problem and an eyesore.

Cigarette butts, thousands of white and tan little nubs, are scattered over the sidewalks, clustered at the base of trees and clogging up gutters. When not taken care of daily they blow into our neighborhoods and yards threatening our children and pets.Flattened, soaked and foul, spent smokes have become one of the city's major litter problems. And too many pubs and bars don’t even provide ash receptacles at entry/exit points. People can be seen accumulating and smoking outside of these places constantly smoking. Rarely (how about never) do smokers get ticketed for littering. The law enforcement solution to litter is difficult; however, as many taxpayers would like to see law enforcement personnel spend their time on more meaningful work how about a few tickets to increase the budget and make this a better place to live. Fine the Bars that don’t clean up their mess.
It would seem to me that a problem like this would be easy to address as all it would require is a little action. We probably don’t need to pass any new laws to address it and we certainly don’t have to purchase an expensive high tech gizmo. Why aren’t we taking care of easy, “low hanging fruit” issues like this one?

[Born Here]

PLEASE dont insult us.....any born and raised Somervillian knows the money wasnt "throw out"...save that story for
the D.A.....Oh, I mean the internal investigation. WHere is the A.B.C. poster ??

[M.O.S.]

Throw out....now my monitor is really covered in coffee.......plaleeeesssss (please) - throw out - my butt