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Gun found in District Court safe, where it had sat for 5 years

County auditor’s report calls it ‘severe failure’ of controls

By Jake Thomas, Columbian political reporter
Published: December 18, 2017, 7:57pm

When Clark County officials opened a safe at District Court earlier this year during a review on the handling of cash and valuables, they discovered an unusual and lethal item.

A box with a Sticky note that read “Do not open” sat on the bottom shelf, and it had sat unopened for about five years until staff from the county auditor’s office looked inside.

In the box, they found a semi-automatic handgun and some ammunition.

A recently released report from the auditor’s office described the incident as a “severe failure of internal controls.” The report states that the pistol and ammunition had been “temporarily placed in the safe for overnight emergency storage, and forgotten for five years.”

Brad Alberts, interim District Court administrator, called the incident “isolated” and said the court has since instituted more stringent procedures for managing evidence.

“Normally we don’t receive evidence of this nature,” he said, noting that District Court does not handle felony cases and that the gun was used as evidence in a misdemeanor case.

He said that the safe, typically used to store cash, is always locked and only a few managers and staff can access its electronic combination lock. Alberts said he took over as administrator about three months ago and that he was not in charge when the gun had been forgotten and discovered.

“It’s not like it was sitting on the top shelf where everyone looked at it every day,” he said.

Secured as evidence

Tom Nosack, a senior management analyst and internal auditor, said finding the gun is “rather unusual,” and couldn’t think of any similar incidents that occurred during other reviews.

Vancouver Police Department spokeswoman Kim Kapp said that the gun, a Sterling .22 pistol, was originally secured by the department as evidence in November 2010 following an incident where it was brandished during a dispute.

She said that in January of 2012 the pistol and an accompanying magazine of ammunition were transferred in a secured van to District Court to be used as evidence in a trial. She didn’t have details on the case, including who was involved in the incident, but said that no one was shot.

During the spring, the auditor’s office discovered the forgotten pistol. Kapp said that police were contacted in March 2017 by the court, notifying the department that the case was over and the gun could be retrieved. She said the gun was released and given back to its owner the next month.

Kapp said that courts will sometimes hold evidence for many years before returning it to the police. She said the police department didn’t lose track of the gun and that the court was responsible for it while it was in its possession.

“We don’t check up on when we get our evidence back,” she said.

The auditor’s recent review was based on visits to 22 county locations and made a total of 48 recommendations to departments and offices to improve their internal controls for handling cash and other valuables. The number of recommendations made by the review is an increase from the 33 recommendations made last year, according to the report.

However, a press release announcing the results of the review stated that handling of cash and receipts is well-controlled overall.

Nosack said that while the review pointed out the oversight of the forgotten gun, it didn’t look deeply into the court’s procedures and he couldn’t say exactly what standard wasn’t followed.

“We didn’t see anything to think it was anything but an anomaly,” he said. “For it to be where it was, was unusual but that was probably the most secure place we would want it to occur.”

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Columbian political reporter