Tempe police's crime scene unit used expired chemicals, broken equipment for 4 years, report says
A Tempe Police Department internal investigation found that its team of crime scene technicians relied on expired chemicals and broken equipment for at least four years and lacked adequate training. Little was done when they alerted superiors.
The problems were so pronounced that the squad leader was asked to resign after an internal investigation found that she "lacked sufficient competency," the December 2021 report said.
A homicide detective who worked crime scenes told the department the forensic unit lacked skill and knowledge and had so badly mishandled evidence, that he "dreaded" having to testify about it before a jury. He was referring specifically to a case in which a broom or mop handle recovered from a murder scene sat in a temporary locker for two years.
Tempe's Professional Standards Bureau investigators heard allegations of other evidence not logged, reports sitting on desks for years, crime scene photos being deleted without being reported and a lack of consistent procedures, the report said.
In one instance, crime scene technicians had to use a smartphone flashlight to adequately illuminate a crime scene because the department's cameras didn't work. At another murder scene, a Mesa crime lab employee drove back to Mesa to get chemicals to process blood samples because Tempe's supply had outlasted its useful shelf life, the report said.
Even after the supervisor left in December 2021 as a result of the report, no changes were made until after a permanent replacement took the position in January 2023.
The new supervisor launched a six-month review of the unit. The team in July was suspended from collecting evidence from scenes of murders and other major crimes a month after a new police chief arrived.
City and police officials, in prepared statements and interviews, said the department acknowledged past problems but was moving forward to correct them. Tempe has contracted Mesa crime scene specialists to do the work in the meantime, and Tempe police have reviewed about 400 old cases dating back three years.
The department said it's found no case where evidence collection compromised a case but noted about 20% of the cases were being subjected to a more detailed review.
Already, one man facing homicide charges has argued in Maricopa County Superior Court the evidence against him that was collected by Tempe police cannot be trusted.
Details in the 45-page internal affairs report undercut previous statements to The Arizona Republic when reporters asked in September about allegations of problems in Tempe's Forensic Services Unit. At the time, the city said it found no compromised cases and said the six-member team of technicians, who are tasked with collecting DNA, fingerprints and other evidence that can be used to establish a defendant's guilt, "did nothing wrong."
But the internal investigation revealed widespread problems going back as far as 2015. It listed specific homicide and burglary cases in which forensic evidence was mishandled.
What investigators found
Tempe's internal affairs investigators first became aware of complaints about the forensic team and Laura Somershoe, its supervisor, in August 2021. They found:
A broom or mop handle — described variously in the report — used in a 2016 murder sat in a locker unprocessed for nearly two years. Normally the temporary locker held evidence for a week. Homicide Sgt. Alan Akey told investigators that was "unacceptable” and said he “dreaded being asked about the item in trial” because “it would have had such a negative impact on the prosecution.”
In the same 2016 case, Akey said a forensic tech told him he was “uncertain If the biological swab he used from a kit was accurate due to the testing kit being expired.”
One forensic unit technician reported the team had "no standards regarding processing evidentiary items," adding "it varies from person to person." He noted that every day he wondered, "What are we doing?"
Somershoe did not track or replace equipment despite leaving $14,000 of the unit’s budget going unspent. For years, the forensic team used expired chemicals to process DNA and broken, inadequate cameras to photograph crime scene evidence.
Another technician reported she had to use a personal phone as a flashlight for a crime scene because she did not have backup equipment. She told investigators Somershoe told her not to mention the problem in her official report, which the technician called "inappropriate," as was the lack of functioning camera equipment, which she said "can compromise accuracy at a crime scene." The technician ended up buying her own equipment.
A third technician with the unit reported Somershoe deleted crime scene photos and directed her "not to share this information with the detectives."
Crime tech employees complained about equipment, training and a toxic work environment to Somershoe's boss, Lt. John Thompson. Thompson responded by giving team members a book titled "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" and counseled Somershoe that she "needed to be humble." A promised second follow-up meeting with staff never happened, and they reported that problems continued.
Sgt. Sean Still, who temporarily supervised the crime scene unit during the 2021 investigation, reported “the technicians were not all trained to use the chemical Blue Start,” which identifies blood at crime scenes, so they avoided using the forensics tool.
When a Mesa crime lab representative was observing Tempe's work, she noticed technicians were processing a murder scene with the wrong chemical. She had to drive to Mesa and bring the correct chemicals, which Tempe's unit did not have.
Akey saw two technicians “reading directions from new equipment” when processing murder evidence and told investigators “they were clearly not proficient in the equipment use.”
Somershoe, the supervisor, worked for Tempe for approximately 26 years, according to the report. She worked in the police communications bureau, criminal investigations bureau, the robbery unit, sex offender notification, property crimes and the patrol bureau. She started at the forensics unit as a technician before getting promoted in 2015 to supervisor.
She declined to comment for this article.
She told investigators she had been tasked with putting together standard procedures for the unit when she took over. She never did it during her six years in the role. Somershoe said she had many other responsibilities during that time, plus the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, that prevented her from working on developing procedures.
Somershoe told investigators those issues, plus responding to calls and her efforts to transition into a new lab are why evidence lingered in the temporary locker. She said was "not neglectful" in her duties, adding "I'm trying to stay afloat."
In another part of the interview, she told internal affairs investigators, she was the target of a "witch hunt" and added her workers were hostile and bullying toward her.
Tempe's new police chief focused on elevating standards
New Police Chief Kenneth McCoy painted a different picture than the report in a September interview. He told The Republic his review of the forensics unit was prompted when a new, experienced forensic supervisor took over in January. She determined that the unit inconsistently gathered evidence and needed its standards "elevated," McCoy said.
The Republic reported in September that Tempe had sidelined the crime scene unit and was reviewing three years' worth of its cases. City leaders said they were just biding time for more training to “elevate” its already passable standards, and that the case review was done “out of an abundance of caution,” rather than any suspected problems.
Tempe also told The Republic at that time that all the crime scene technicians were qualified to do the job. McCoy said "the unit has done nothing wrong” and “there's no evidence they made any mistakes.”
This week, Tempe officials declined to immediately answer specific questions about the 2021 internal affairs findings and instead said they were focused on addressing the problems and moving forward.
In an emailed statement to The Republic, Tempe officials said "we are not here to second-guess decisions made months or years ago by the unit's former supervisor — who no longer works for Tempe Police — or the decisions made by the since-departed City Manager or Police Chief."
"We are here to evolve this unit to ensure Tempe residents have the high-quality public safety services they demand and deserve," the statement said.
In a second prepared statement, McCoy added, "When I took over as Tempe police chief in June, hitting pause on the FSU (Forensic Service Unit) was one of the first actions I took. I did so because we absolutely need every element of our police department to function at the highest possible level. Since then, we've done everything in our power to improve the FSU under its new supervisor, including getting advanced training and having City of Mesa forensics experts step in to handle major crime scene investigations.
"While an initial review of about 400 cases has found that no case was compromised, we continue to look more deeply at many of these cases. We are going to dot every i and cross every t again, reviewing and reexamining the forensics to make sure justice was served. I hope our diligence sends a strong message that we're taking this seriously and that I'm committed to making the FSU one of the best forensics departments in Arizona."
"This situation was not created on my watch. But it will be fixed while I serve as police chief," McCoy said.
Mesa agreed on Nov. 6 to take over that evidence work for Tempe in exchange for $160,000 because of those problems. The contract simply made official an arrangement that informally began in July, when Tempe benched the crime scene unit.
Tempe's technicians were expected to begin their new four-month training at Mesa's Crime Lab in December, according to an internal Tempe memo found in court documents.
The murder case in court
The number of cases that could have been affected over the years by the issues noted in the internal affairs report and Tempe's ongoing review remained unknown.
Multiple law enforcement staffers interviewed for the investigation expressed concern about other cases that hinged on forensic evidence in Tempe.
Akey told investigators that he “had concerns for homicide cases when and if a criminal trial were to occur due to lack of knowledge from FSU and lack of standards.” And that could create a problem even for cases that have been closed.
The disclosure of issues like these could fall under a legal principle established by the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark ruling Brady v. Maryland. Trial court judges have thrown out cases after finding that prosecutors withheld evidence that would help in a legal defense.
One man, Sterling Evans, who was charged with second-degree murder in the death of his ex-girlfriend’s brother, Anthony Bulerin, on March 5, 2021, is pointing to the internal investigation in his defense.
Tempe police said at the time Evans and his former girlfriend were arguing in a home near Rural Road and Alameda Drive, and Bulerin tried to intervene and de-escalate. Evans was accused of using a handgun to fatally shoot him. A witness who saw the man flee after hearing a single gunshot identified him as Evans.
Somershoe and at least two other crime scene technicians were listed as potential prosecution witnesses.
Evans, who was representing himself, stated in court documents the findings from Somershoe’s investigation match those by experts who looked into the case, including Roger Clark, a 27-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
In August, Clark, an independent police procedures consultant, concluded the crime scene was processed poorly.
“I cannot express any confidence in work done at the crime scene as documented in the material provided,” Clark wrote in his report to Evans' private investigator.
Clark cited a lack of documentation for police’s work done at the crime scene, including fingerprint extractions, accurate blood spatter locations and analyses, and Blue Star and Luminol testing for the potential presence of blood.
Clark touched on Tempe police's internal investigation, stating its findings “documented a significant lack of basic scene documentation and preservation of physical evidence.”
Another defense expert was Norbert Neumeister of USA Forensic LLC, who reported in early October that some of the case photos in Evans’ case were processed through Adobe Photoshop, court records show.
He explained that a photo being processed through photoshop changes the digital fingerprint of the original photo. Because of this finding, Neumeister suggested that all original photos should be disclosed to verify whether any were manipulated or redacted.
Evans’ mother, Leah Evans, described her son's case to The Republic, saying it has been a tough few years.
“This has been a very difficult and frustrating experience,” she told The Republic Thursday.
“The forensics are deficient. All of this is deficient. And yet this case has not been dropped,” Leah Evans said. “That’s three years of his life, sitting there.”
Reporter Sam Kmack covers Tempe, Scottsdale and Chandler. Follow him on Twitter @KmackSam or reach him at sam.kmack@arizonarepublic.com.
Reporter Elena Santa Cruz covers Mesa, Tempe, and Glendale police. Reach her at elena.santacruz@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Tempe police crime scene unit issues could affect years of cases
