Miami Beach Police technician suspended for misplacing evidences
A veteran Miami Beach Police technician working in the crime investigation section, known as the Crime Scene, was suspended from his position last week, while detectives review dozens of cases to see if they were compromised. Ernesto Rodríguez, Miami Beach Police spokesman, said that accused was suspended with a right to salary on July 15 because he improperly kept evidence of nine cases.
Police said that Bruder stored the evidence in a temporary ticket office at the police station to which only he had access, instead of keeping it in the department's storage facility.
Rodriguez added that it is not known with certainty if any of the cases that the police are reviewing -of which, some go back several years- were affected in some way by what Bruder did.
The task of the technicians is usually to look for fingerprints and collect evidence such as bullet casings and DNA, and then process and save all the evidence.
"At the moment, there is no indication that any evidence has disappeared, nor does anything indicate that there has been any relationship with money or narcotics," said Rodriguez.
A police source familiar with the case said just recently that the investigators do not believe that any evidence was taken from the police department, nor that there is an economic reason for Bruden to do what he did.
Bruden, who is not a certified agent nor belongs to the Police Union, could not be located to know what he had to comment on the subject. Rodriguez said investigators from the Internal Affairs Section are working jointly with the Miami-Dade County State Attorney's Office to review the cases handled by Bruder.
"We discovered this problem and immediately began to investigate it. We will present charges if necessary. Similarly, we are reviewing our procedures for handling evidence to determine if any changes are needed, "Miami Beach Police Chief Dan Oates said in a statement he released.
While surprise and outrage run through the streets of Florida, the authorities prosecute the accused and make sure to avoid future episodes of this nature. As usual, Newsgur Florida will surely cover all the news that might pick your interest around the matter.
