It's amazing that after years of this column being published that we are still receiving reports of items being booked into police property rooms that are even more unusual and/or bizarre than those we have reported in the past. Our headliner item this issues is something that never even existed before, so it couldn't have been in our property rooms. In fact, there is even a question about whether or not this item really is what it is reported to be. With that said, and realizing that it probably wasn't easy to follow what was just said, here we go.

Look carefully at the first two photos in this article. The items shown in the full view and in the close-up of the largest part which is shown immediately below it were booked into evidence as

Now you may be saying to yourself, "That looks like a General Motors steering column to me!" Well that's exactly what Rod Bishop, Mesquite (TX) Police Department said. But when the "people in the know" said that a GM steering column was use in the shuttle, Rod accepted the fact that our job in property rooms is to safely hold what other people determine is evidence. Therefore, if you don't have Space Shuttle debris in your property room, you lose this issue's contest. Congratulations, Rod, and thanks for sharing this in the Dallas IAPE Property Management Seminar in Dallas.

Runner-up Dan Rud, Rapid City (ND) Police Department, reports that an officer in a local Department "apparently forgot to read the part of the property manual which says we do not accept explosives in our building." He said this item was about 11 1/2 inches in height, and 3 inches in diameter. Dan called the EOD Section from a nearby Air Force base. They said it's a WWII artillery round which typically was filled with grape shot, and could be used against personnel or aircraft.

EOD subsequently took it, X-rayed it and found it was not a live round; the grape shot and all the stuff which makes it go 'boom' had been removed as a war souvenir. A local citizen had found it while he was cleaning underneath his trailer home, but the EOD assistance helped Dan to get rid of it within a couple of hours.