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BPD Expands Evidence Storage Capacity

The Bellevue Police Department is preparing the former Bank of Bellevue building at 201 West Mission Avenue to expand its Property and Evidence Unit. The building will allow the department to add significant capacity to what is has now, at least until a new police facility is ready. Several building improvements have to be made before the space is ready. The improvements include a security system, cameras, alarms, key-fob entry system, internet access and other structural modifications that will take several months.

BPD’s Lieutenant Bob Wood oversees the Property and Evidence Unit and is supervising the preparation of the new facility. He expects the new space will have two considerable impacts on his operation. The first one being an opportunity to start "from the ground up" to plan a more efficient system to organize and process all the evidence in one spot. He elaborated, "our current operation is a combination of various systems that we inherited, with old wooden shelving in numerous locations. We will have an opportunity to carefully design and organize the new building for the most efficient use. That is such a huge improvement just right there."

The second significant impact is that each of the evidence technicians will have their own office space. The three are currently squeezed into a space designed for just one person.

The Unit currently has nearly 20,000 records for property and processes 4,000 pieces of property through every month. Sometimes, one criminal case can have hundreds of pieces of evidence. The move to the new space is a fairly sophisticated process as well because for every piece of evidence moved, 4 separate records are made in order to track its whereabouts.

Photos: The former Bank of Bellevue building.