The following statement was presented by Chief of Police Cathy L. Lanier to the District of Columbia Council Committee on the Judiciary, Honorable Phil Mendelson, Chair, on February 25, 2008, at the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC.
Good morning, Chairman Mendelson, members of the Committee, and guests. I am pleased to have this opportunity to discuss with you the importance of securing a short term lease for the Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD) property and evidence warehouse at 2235 Shannon Place. The full text of my statement is available on the Department’s website at www.mpdc.dc.gov.
I am certain that we all agree that it is critical for the city to house evidence in an appropriate facility. In order to hold offenders accountable and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, the city must be able to account for all evidence collected that is connected to a crime. Prematurely or haphazardly moving the approximately one million pieces of evidence at MPD’s property and evidence warehouse could jeopardize the prosecution of cases associated with that evidence. Moreover, it is imperative that the city have well preserved evidence. New technology is constantly being developed to collect better forensic evidence from many different types of property. For instance, MPD was recently able to close a 10-year old homicide case after finding viable DNA evidence on a hat. In order to continue producing these types of results and to ensure that the city can truly benefit from the Public Safety Laboratory when it opens, we must work to preserve and protect the valuable evidence that we have now.
As many of you know, MPD’s current property and evidence warehouse came under scrutiny in the past for providing less than adequate storage and security. Early in his tenure, Mayor Fenty identified the storage of MPD's evidence and property as a priority for his Administration. We worked diligently to develop a plan that would meet the short and long term goals of the District. We are confident that entering into a short term lease at 2235 Shannon place is in the best interest of the city.
To begin with, I would like to tell you what steps MPD has taken to address concerns about the Shannon Place warehouse. After reviewing both an internal MPD audit and one conducted by the Office of the Inspector General, I identified three major issues that needed to be addressed immediately. We needed to:
- Improve the condition of the current facility to provide safe working conditions for our employees;
- Remove high risk items from the facility to a secure, undisclosed location pending the final move to the new state of the art facility; and
- Move rapidly to expedite the purging of old items
We have made important progress on the overall project plan. Items of high value have been moved to a secure location while the District begins the process of building a new evidence warehouse. The Department has made some basic safety and quality of life improvements to the Shannon Place property to ensure adequate working conditions. And we have implemented an aggressive plan to purge property that is no longer needed for evidentiary purposes. In the past two months alone, the Property & Evidence Division has:
- Burned 500 firearms;
- Destroyed 3,400 general and 4,000 narcotic-related items;
- Deposited a significant amount of currency; and
- Removed over 400 vehicles from inventory. The vast majority of these vehicles were auctioned off, and about 40 were destroyed.
The next stage of the plan is far more significant. We must relocate the property and evidence from the Shannon Place facility and into our new space to ensure we have a state-of-the art facility, with modern hardware and software systems to store, inventory, retrieve and track property and evidence efficiently. This is a logistically daunting task. The biggest challenge is in information management. The evidence on any given case is only useful if it can be located. We can track the evidence in the current location. However, the old information system is unstable and cannot be relied upon to track a whole new set of locations. When we move the evidence, we must move it in such a way that we can still locate all of the evidence.
Our plan is to implement an information tracking system concurrently with the move of the evidence. It is an industry best practice to integrate the information management with the physical layout of any property or evidence facility. As such, it is impractical to implement new technology prior to the final move. In addition, the move will be far more efficient if the Department is able to purge as much property as possible before the move.
All of this has been considered in developing the long-term plan for relocating the evidence warehouse. The city needs a modern, up-to-date police evidence control and storage facility with appropriate lighting, electrical, heating and cooling systems, automated storage and retrieval systems, correct packaging systems and appropriate storage options, and security systems sufficient to ensure the safety of the District’s evidence. The District is working diligently to identify a permanent location. On February 22nd, the Office of Contracting and Procurement issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the design and construction of a new property and evidence warehouse.
The primary factors to consider when examining whether other options are viable are cost and availability.
Cost
Although the increase in the cost of the lease at Shannon Place is steep, the Office of Property Management (OPM) does not believe there is another viable alternative that would be less expensive or meet the needs of the Department . The cost of leasing the facility will rise from what the District is currently paying, $2.69 per square foot, to $11.81 per square foot, for a total of about $1.16 million for 18 months, the life of the lease. While at first glance this seems a substantial increase, it is in fact a fair market value for the facility. It is important to note that the original price for the warehouse was established when the lease was first executed over 20 years ago in 1984. Since that time, it is clear that the market rate for warehouse space has significantly changed in the District.
Moreover, there would be substantial costs associated with building out any space that MPD would move into in order to make it suitable for an evidence warehouse. And as I mentioned earlier, there would be additional costs associated with deploying a robust technology to track the evidence. Lastly, the cost of the move alone is quite substantial. The Department estimates that executing a move in the next six months would cost between $1.5 and $2 million. Moving evidence and property is not like moving a household or even a whole office of furniture. The sheer size of the move – about one million pieces of evidence – will demand complex logistics. We estimate that it will take 30 days to fully execute the move. Over that time we would need to stage facilities – like food facilities and PortaJohns – to support the sizeable staffing required. Contract security would need to be brought in for portions of the move when it will be difficult to secure dual sites. To ensure that the move is not interrupted by predictable problems, we would need to have readily available contract workers for elevators and software support. The move would require specialized equipment, such as extra generators, fork lifts, and refrigerated trucks for transporting narcotic evidence. This is truly a complex, high risk, and expensive operation that, the District should not conduct twice.
Availability of Alternatives
Even if the cost and complexity of the move could be easily managed or overcome, the fact is that there are no better alternatives readily available. As I stated earlier, OPM has looked for alternatives, but has not found any economically viable warehouse facilities that provide adequate space available on the market at this time. Moreover, very few landlords are interested in an 18-month lease with an option to renew for an additional 18 months. This convenience would come at premium price.
Lastly, the leased facility at 225 Virginia Avenue, SE, which has in the past been suggested as potential space for the Evidence Control Branch, is not a viable alternative. It does not make financial sense to commit to a long term lease of more than 400,000 square feet of shell space for the purpose of finding approximately 100,000 square feet for property and evidence storage. Moreover, this space would require substantial additional investment to meet just the basic requirements of an evidence and property warehouse. This does not include the additional costs for the technology and systems of a modern police evidence control and storage facility that would be preferable wherever the Evidence Control Unit moves for the long term. In addition, to use one floor of 225 Virginia for the property and evidence storage, the District would have to continue to pay the minimum rent of $15.44 per square foot on the entire lease, or more than $6 million. The District is attempting to consolidate its leased space and focus on owned space and has no use for the additional floors at 225 Virginia, especially since they are unfinished space. More importantly, the District is in the final stages of negotiations to dispose of its interest in the property.
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Admittedly, the current situation for the property and evidence warehouse is less than ideal. The facility presents challenges to the processing and management of evidence. However, the District has developed a plan to eliminate the obstacles that have presented a challenge to the Evidence Control Branch in the past. The renewal of the lease at Shannon Place is an important step in this process. I encourage Council to allow this contract to be ratified and we will continue to work with you, Chairman Mendelson, and the Committee to ensure that all concerns are being met as we work toward providing the Evidence Control Branch with a new, secure, state of the art facility in the future.
Thank you again for the opportunity to express to you the importance of the proposed lease at 2235 Shannon Place. I believe it is in the best interest of the city to move forward with the current plans so that we can focus on creating the long-term solution for evidence and property, rather than expending more critical resources than necessary on a short term solution. I am happy to answer any questions you may have at this time.