As outlined in the last issue of The Evidence Log, nine years of planning for our new police facility finally came to fruition-and now we have moved.  Part I of this article described the planning process and the purging that prepared us for the actual move.  Part 2 now will describe the actual process of moving 10,000 pieces of evidence, including guns, money and narcotics, in less than one workday.

As discussed in Part 1, we had established a goal that prior to the move we would eliminate from our inventory all firearms, drugs, currency, and auction items which had been signed off for a final disposition.  Why spend the effort of moving these items, just to dispose of them later from our new facility?  Even though we dispose of firearms, drugs, currency and auctions items on a regularly scheduled basis, we accelerated the disposals to ensure that only active evidence was moved into the new facility.  Five days prior to the move, not one firearm, package of narcotics or currency, or an auction item was to be found on the shelf that had been signed off for disposal.

Although property room staff must be intimately involved in the actual move, a major issue facing any relocation is the determination whether the "labor" for the move will be provided by professional movers or by in-house personnel.  The Burbank Police Department opted to contract with local movers for the majority of the evidence move.  Obviously they were supervised by property room personnel, but for maximum security of the most critical evidence (guns, money and narcotics), all of that moving, from lock-down to lock-down, was done by property room personnel, narcotics officers, and a few of our outstanding reserve officers.

Containers of standardized sizes are used in every possible storage situation within our Department.  Using our inventory figures for each size container (Small, Medium, Money and Narcotics Envelopes, banker boxes, gun boxes), and for frozen items, long items, etc., we were able to position shelving to exactly fit the appropriate container.  We also decided in advance the exact location to which each group of containers was to be moved, and in which order they would be placed on the shelving.  The new storage area was greatly improved, with mobile shelving, custom sized cabinetry to fit bins designed for the containers, and better security.  To make the transition smoother, each location was numbered in the same manner as in the previous facility.  When the move occurred, we moved "A" Envelopes from the old "A" Drawers into the new "A" Bins on "A" Shelves in the new property room.  The greatest advantage of the process was that almost no paper work or computer entries had to be changed during the move.  "A" Envelope #123 which had been stored in location "A" was still in location "A", but location "A" was now a bin on a shelf in the new location, instead of a drawer in the old one.  The same procedure was used for everything from homicide evidence to found property, all done either by property room personnel, or under their direct supervision.

After hiring the moving company we were introduced by the movers to "typewriter carts."  Similar to the book carts found in libraries, but substantially larger, the typewriter cart is nothing more that a 24" deep, 48" high
book case on rollers.  It allows items to be removed from one shelf, placed on the typewriter cart in the same order, rolled to the new location, and then replaced on the new shelf in the same order.  It helps if you had a logical order to start with, but if not, the move could give you the opportunity to make that big change you've been meaning to do for years.

The "carts" were lifesavers, as they allowed 95% of the property and evidence to be moved while retaining their logical and sequential order.  Long items, frozen items, and other specialty items had to be moved almost individually, and thus required specialized attention to be placed in the proper location in the new facility.

Obtaining approximately 50 of the carts in advance allowed property room personnel to "prepack" much of the evidence on the carts, including all of the money, narcotics, and guns, while they were still secured in the Property Room.  Prior to the professional movers arriving, a rented truck was secured by the Department, and the property room personnel and narcotics officers moved all of the high profile evidence (money, narcotics and guns) to the new location.  With it all secured, attention could be focused on the bulk portion of the move.

The movers arrived, and officers were posted in the Property Room and in the moving van to ensure security, and guarantee that the carts were removed and located in their sequential and orderly manner.  One by one, each cart was moved from the Property Room to the moving van under the escort of a reserve officer (one cart - one officer).  Officers rode with the evidence the two blocks to the new facility, and then the entire process was repeated in reverse, resulting in the property residing in the same storage order, on the same numbered storage location, in the new facility.

The only glitch in the whole move was that six sections of bulk storage shelving for the new facility had not arrived by the time of the move, so several typewriter carts had to be used as the temporary home for their contents in the new facility for about five days, until the shelving arrived.

Within six hours, over 9,000 items of evidence had been safely moved from the old to the new location, and stored in such a manner that property operations could continue in a systematic manner with less than a workday break in service to the officers and the public.