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New evidence tech hired for Beckley PDFeb 13, 2013 (The Register-Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- A retired police captain has been hired as the new Beckley Police Department evidence custodian. Randy Boyd, who retired from BPD with over 30 years of law enforcement experience and is an FBI National Academy graduate, will take over the cataloguing and maintenance of submitted evidence. Capt. C.D. Mullens temporarily occupied this position after former evidence tech Gabriella Brown admitted to obtaining narcotics from the evidence holding room. Brown was charged with obtaining oxycodone by fraud from the BPD evidence holding room. She pleaded guilty in December and is to be sentenced in April. Chief Tim Deems said, "(Boyd) obviously brings a lot of experience and integrity to that position. We're excited to have him." Deems said Boyd will be working closely with Mullens over the next month or so to get up to speed with the evidence. "It's a big challenge and full-time job. We believe he will do a great job." Along with a new evidence custodian, the department is integrating an evidence barcoding system, which will "hopefully allow us to streamline the process of receiving, storing and releasing found property and evidence through the use of computerized records." BPD has also recently obtained an incident command vehicle, which will be utilized in major crime scenes and various large-scale community events. Deems said the vehicle was purchased from the Kanawha County Sheriff's Department. The vehicle will allow investigators to have more resources on scene and let them catalog and turn over evidence directly to the evidence custodian. Additionally, with the numerous events held in Beckley which all require police security, traffic control, or both, police say this vehicle will provide a location to centralize command staff and allow for more effective direction of personnel and observation of event crowds. -- E-mail: [email protected] ___ (c)2013 The Register-Herald (Beckley, W.Va.) Visit The Register-Herald (Beckley, W.Va.) at www.register-herald.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |