This is a special edition of "I've got something you don't have" for two reasons. The first reason is that we have pulled all of the entries from newspaper articles. It's not that we had a shortage of entries in the many IAPE classes over the last few months, but these just seemed too great to pass up. The second reason is that with our winner this issue, we are usurping what probably would have been a great closing item for a column of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". We hope you enjoy this article, and that you don't miss the lessons that it brings.

The Chippewa Falls (WI) Police Department has a partially eaten sheet cake in their property room. The white cake had icing, decorations and pretty little sprinkles. It also has quite a few head hairs and pubic hairs baked into the cake by the 18 year-old student who viewed it as a prank on some classmates. When the teacher prohibited food in the classroom, however, the cake was taken to the teachers break room and presented to them. Unfortunately the cake was half eaten when a confidant of the creator spilled the beans. Although nobody noticed hairs while eating, they were obvious in the remaining cake. A police captain was quoted in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as saying, "Maybe ifhe had used devil's-food it wouldn't have been so noticeable".

The Mayor of Miami (FL) has been at odds with police since siding against the government in the Elian Gonzalez case. He claimed harassment for recently having to spend a night in jail after being arrested for striking his estranged wife Mari on the head with a terra cotta tea canister. He claims he has never had such a pot in his possession, but the Miami Herald quotes law enforcement sources as saying that "police have in their evidence locker a hard canister 'heavier than a baseball'''.

A 4-foot python snake that escaped while inside the LaPorte (IN) Police Department six months ago finally turned up. The Chief of Detectives found the missing reptile as he moved bags around in their evidence locker. Officers originally had found the reptile slithering down a street. "We placed the snake in a holding container which ended up not holding it," The Chief said. "We scoured the building back then and found no traces, so we just figured it got out or went into the duct work and would be found dead." It is unknown how the snake got into the evidence locker. The snake was taken to a pet shop, where employees told officers it appeared the snake was healthy and had eaten recently. Nobody speculated on what the snake could have eaten.

The winning agency will remain anonymous this issue. The article, which is loosely quoted beginning in the next paragraph, was written by Eve Sullivan, and published in The Stamford (CN) Advocate through an Associated Press link. We are sure the article doesn't describe every action of the property room, and our tongue is slightly in our cheek with this selection, so we have attempted to conceal the actual name of the agency. The thing which they have in their property room, which IAPE certainly does not recommend, is EVERYTHING THEY HAVE EVER BOOKED!

Many strange things can be found in the property and evidence room at Police headquarters, including a human thumb in a jar of formaldehyde in the refrigerator. We've had this since 1984," said the Property Sergeant, lifting the jar. "It was found at the post office." Police identified the thumb's owner by its fingerprint. The man, who was mentally disturbed, mailed the thumb to his parents and it fell out of the package, the Property Sergeant said. "His parents said they weren't surprised because last year he sent an ear."

In a comer of the property room, a 6-foot wooden statue of a man stands draped in a cloth outfit, beads and trinkets. It was brought to the station in April 1999 by a man who found it in a park. Some people say it comes from Africa and possibly was used in voodoo.

One employee at the department won't enter the property room because of the statue, he said. "It's here, and it's unclaimed property. "We're not sure how to get rid of it," the Property Sergeant said. "It's one of the more interesting things to look at, but it really doesn't have a story behind it." Above a filing cabinet are two giant boards riddled with nails. Drug dealers had concealed the boards under leaves as a booby trap for police. While a few items are kept for show, most have an important purpose - they are evidence in murder, rape, robbery, assault and drug cases.

The property and evidence room is locked, has an alarm and the counter is behind a steel gate, making it almost impossible to penetrate. Only two people have a code to get in the room, and one doesn't know the other's number. The two have many duties, including cataloging the items, keeping precise records and transporting evidence to the state forensics lab and the state toxicology lab. [Evidently purging is not one of those duties. ed.] A walk-in vault is full of money, crack cocaine, marijuana, PCP, heroin, crack pipes and other paraphernalia seized in drug raids.

Two smaller vaults contain larger sums of cash and large bags of cocaine and marijuana. Shotguns and handguns, which can be stored for 20 years, are kept in cabinets in the vault. Police confiscate 100 to 150 guns each year. The property room is lined with tall shelves filled with cardboard boxes. "This is all evidence in ongoing cases," the Property Sergeant said. "We have thousands of things in here, but we know where everything is."

He digs into one box and pulls out a spring-loaded knife, butterfly knife, double-edged knife and two knives with brass knuckles attached, all illegal. One knife appears to be a pen and another a cigarette lighter. "You can have a knife as long as it's 4 inches or less," he said.

The box also contains martial arts stars, a knife disguised as a gun, a belt made of a motorcycle chain, a ball with metal spikes and a wooden club with nails on the top. "A lot of these things are legal, but it's how they use them," the Property Sergeant said. They also have two stun guns, a sawed-off shotgun and a World War 1 .30-caliber, water-cooled machine gun. "It was taken in a drug raid in 1986," the Property Sergeant said. "It was ordered by the state to be destroyed, but we're just keeping it here. We show it to the kids."

Other items in the room include a giant bottle of champagne, a go-cart, a Winnie-the-Pooh plush toy and two statues. Another room contains bicycles, cases of beer, kegs, a motor scooter and several boxes of evidence from old murder cases.

The Property Technician, who has worked in the property room for four years, said many police departments have problems keeping track of evidence, but not them. "I think a good part of it is that the Property Sergeant has been down here for 20 years," he said. "He's only had three partners." The Property Sergeant, a 27-year veteran of the department, said he started in the property room when it was moved from the records room to the basement. "I've been here basically since it started," he said. "It's mine. 1 feel like it's home."