Hot Property Police/Sheriff’S Warehouse Stores Everything From Trial Evidence To Lost-And-Found Items

Spokane, like most cities, has galleries and museums that offer visitors a chance to see objects both beautiful and curious.

But one of Spokane’s more fascinating collection of artifacts is not generally accessible to the public.

In fact, unless you’re a law enforcement officer, you’ll probably never get to see it.

It’s the Police Property Facility at 1300 Gardner St., where evidence for pending criminal cases is stored. Whether a .38-caliber revolver or a can of black spray paint, if the item’s exhibit A in an upcoming trial, it’s sitting on a shelf there.

On a given day, more than 80,000 items are being stored in the shared police/Sheriff’s departments warehouse, said Donna Berroteran, facility supervisor.

All evidence brought to Property is assigned a number, entered into a data base and put where there is space in the 16,000-square-foot facility. Although the warehouse appears to be somewhat jumbled, Berroteran said that any piece of evidence can be quickly located.

Most of the evidence is hidden in paper bags and manila envelopes, which cram the shelves. Some can be seen through Zip Lock bags: a package of Zig Zag rolling papers in one, a golf-ball-sized stone in another.

Other things are too big or bulky or otherwise impractical to bag - power tools, luggage, broken parking meters, bongs, sticks, baseball bats, a crossbow, stereos, TVs, computers, swords.

The warehouse looks kind of like a well-outfitted pawnshop.

Valuables, such as money (real and counterfeit), jewelry and drugs are kept in a vault. Specimens taken from corpses, blood samples and other biological evidence are kept in a cooler or freezer.

Thousands of syringes used for shooting up drugs are visible through puncture resistant plastic jugs in one room.

Guns of all shapes and sizes are kept together in a secured area. Pistols are typically stored in canvas bags while shotguns and rifles lean against the wall on a gun rack.

Berroteran said she has seen all types come through her doors, from sawed-off shotguns to automatic machine guns.

“We laugh at some of the things that come in,” she said. “One time we got a human foot in a pickle jar.”

Other oddities to come through Property include a skull still sporting a mustache, a trampoline someone found and turned in, and mothballs used in an assault case.

A small percentage of the stuff stored in the warehouse has been found and turned in to the police, Berroteran said.

“It amazes me but there are a lot of honest people out there,” she said. “We get wallets with money still in them.”

A sea of bicycles fill one room. Police bring in 10 to 12 a day, most of which were found and turned in. Berroteran said that many bikes are never claimed and are consequently auctioned off with other unclaimed property.

Berroteran recommended that bike owners scratch their driver’s license numbers on the frame, which property staff could use to track the owner down.

The Property office has recently installed track shelving that promises to be more space efficient than the fixed, wooden shelving currently used. With the turn of a crank, the aluminum shelves glide along their tacks to separate and expose evidence or come tightly together to take up less room.

Evidence is constantly cycling through the facility, Berroteran said. Once a trial has been adjudicated, the evidence is returned to the owner if possible, destroyed if illegal or auctioned if the owner is not known.

Still, the warehouse is in no danger of running out of artifacts to decorate its shelves, Berroteran said.

There’s always more evidence to take its place.