Thousands of Baltimore Crime Scene Fingerprints Never Processed

 

CREDIT: Middleton Evans

Thousands of fingerprints Baltimore police lift from crime scenes such as home and business burglaries and car break-ins over the last several years, are just sitting in Baltimore city's crime lab.

They are never analysed or processed in order to try and solve these crimes. A lab supervisor and retired examiner have spoken out.

Supervisor Ken Phillips is a former officer who spent three decades in forensics. He was recruited to the lab in 2017 and is speaking out due to his ignored attempts to alert superiors and city officials.

He, along with a former senior lab supervisor explain that officers collect the evidence at crime scenes, although their work is rarely used and nonviolent crimes are rarely solved.

Fingerprint analyst Roy Michael Jones has said, "If you had a burglary in your house the last three or four years, the chance of getting results is zero to none." After 30 years in the field, he retired due to frustration in 2019.

The closure rate in the Baltimore Police Department for property crimes this year is 3.6%, the national average being 10%.

Being a whistleblower, Phillips faces reprisals but felt compelled to reveal the system that wastes time and money, and risks criminal cases.

It has been reported that backlogs aren't uncommon n big cities, as departments are forced to prioritise due to a lack of funds. Phillips has stated that the Baltimore police don't acknowledge the untouched caseload and just how big it is. The latest report is from July 20th and lists a backlog of 894 fingerprint cases.

"It's no exaggeration to say they've written off 10,000 cases, and it's probably much higher."

As well as a huge backlog of fingerprint cases, there is also unprocessed evidence from thousands of cases that could help convict suspects or clear the wrongly accused.

These have been left over from years ago, and include murders, rapes and carjacking cases.

Phillips has been trying to bring attention to this issue for over a year. He has gone to extraordinary efforts having filed an internal affairs complaint with the department, meeting with the inspector general's office, and writing a letter to Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott.

"I believe the citizens' right to know about serious mismanagement and waste of public funds outweighs any supposed interest the BPD may have in keeping these matters confidential."

Phillips has been suspended without pay and is facing potential discipline, retaliation for speaking up.

The Baltimore Police Department released a statement in response explaining it took Phillip's complaint seriously and the Maryland Department of Health and the American National Standards Institute's accreditation board has looked into the matter. It was stated that they "did not have any negative findings on the department's process and policies."

"The department will continue to work in addressing the backlog of cases, and staff shortages in our Crime Lab, while prioritising violent crimes and evidence in these cases."

The department has refused to discuss internal discipline Phillips faces as a matter of policy.

Phillips has stated the policy prevents him from discussing the reasoning behind his suspension.

Steve O'Dell oversaw the crime lab between 2013 and 2020. He started as lab director and made his way o the department's chief financial officer.

He has explained that labs never test all evidence and prioritise working with detectives to oversee more important cases and move to cut down on unnecessary work.

"You can't get bogged down working on stuff nobody is going to pay attention to. The best practices are always triage. You can't go to a 'test all' approach."

Retired fingerprint examiner Roy Jones said he left over frustrations with the lab's policies and leadership. He explained that the only way property crime gets processed is if "you know somebody in the Police Department or insisted on your case getting done."

"It wasn't sitting well with me, so I left."

The crime lab has a budget of $22.7 million this year. In 2019, it was at $19.8 million and the number of employees has declined by 15 to a result of 173.

It was reported there was a backlog of 1,000 fingerprint cases in 2002. At the time, officials called this "troubling." 

Phillips believes if his calculations are correct, the numbers have grown tenfold.

Michelle Triplett runs  regional fingerprint identification program in Seattle and has explained that staffing is a challenge and quite often, labs on't have efficient processes. She also believes property crimes should not just be written off.

"If your house is burglarised, hat emotionally affects the citizen in avery similar way to a violent crime. The taxpayers pay for these services, and if the services aren't going to be performed, maybe they should be given to a group that can perform them."

She believes state and county labs should be asked for assistance. Maryland State Police revealed that they have no fingerprint backlog.

Peter Stout, director of the Houston Forensic Science Center, has revealed that his lab works with police to prioritise what needs to be processed and tested, in order to reduce the workload.

He said his lab has a fingerprint backlog of around 2,500.

"The reality is, everybody has to work through some strategy to try to corral the absolutely gigantic pile of evidence that fundamentally none of us have the resources to manage."

It is believed testing decisions shouldn't be left to police to make.

Although Phillips was a supervisor for the crime lab in which he worked, he explained that he was not fully able to assess the backlog.

"You're in this full-blown triage mode where you're more or less hitting high spots."

He revealed that due to staffing problems, there are many cases brought into crime labs by crime lab technicians that are ignored. They aren't processed, examined or entered into databases. After two years, these cases are written off and don't become part of a backlog.

Deputy Crime Lab Director, Ethan Conway has said, "Our backlog consists of all violent crimes and non-violent crimes from the last two years. These are cases we will focus our resources on until such time that we can handle incoming cases and begin to expand the scope of our work."

Phillips told the inspector general and department's public integrity bureau, "You need to make a choice to have enough staff to staff this unit, or quit wasting taxpayers money by sending people out on crime scenes, and misleading victims, making them think there's evidence collection."

O'Dell says crime labs with bigger backlogs can cite them as evidence they need more funding.

Phillips heard nothing for over a year after filing a complaint in June 2020. He was told it got lost in the shuffle.

It was only recently he was interviewed by commanders, and met with deputy commissioners Brian Nadeau and James Gillis. He believed investigators cared more about how he raised the issues rather than the issues themselves.

"The reason I turned to the press is because for over two years total, I have been working within the system to get wrongdoing and mismanagement corrected and not only has nothing been done, but my work life has become very uncomfortable for reporting wrongdoing."