At a King City Council meeting on Jan. 21, the King City Police Department briefed councilors on a recent field trip officers took to destroy their evidence.
“Last week we took a field trip down to Eugene, and we partnered with Aftermath Biohazard cleanup and we disposed of over 40 pounds of narcotics,” Sergeant Brian Sigler told councilors at the meeting. “We’re a lot lighter here now.”
In an effort to receive accreditation for the King City Police Department, Sigler and Chief of Police Ernest Happala traveled to Eugene, Oregon, to dispose of over 40 pounds of seized narcotics and melted down “over 120 pounds” of weaponry in McMinnville, Oregon, eradicating seized firearms that spanned decades of police work.
“That was quite a process,” Sigler said. “That was a really big step for our Police Department to get rid of decades of narcotics and firearms that have been here.”
The department has been working with the Northwest Accreditation Alliance for their certification, and according to Happala, clearing out old evidence is just one part of the accreditation process. According to the Northwest Accreditation website, the accreditation process usually takes eight to 16 months.
“Property and evidence is one of the 144 things that they look at,” Happala said about the process. “They’ll go through everything with you, and then once you completed all that, it’s submitted to them for approval.”
The department partnered with Aftermath Biohazard Services in Eugene and Cascade Welding Services in McMinnville for the narcotic and firearm disposal, respectively.
Narcotics and firearms that were destroyed had been acquired either after criminal cases were closed or the items were turned in to police.
“The drug evidence or drugs for destruction are the items we receive or seize for destruction. We also seize evidence in criminal cases and after the case is adjudicated, we receive documentation in the form usually of a destruction order. When we run out of room, we have to destroy what we can,” Happala told Tigard Life.
During their update on seeking accreditation with the city council, councilors questioned Sigler and Happala on the number of fatal overdoses recently reported.
“There’s been a decrease,” Sigler said. “There’s been a decrease in our overdose calls and a decrease in our fentanyl overdoses.” The number of overdose calls in King City is not readily available on their website, but Sigler said at the meeting that they are “still happening a lot.”
After disposing of confiscated narcotics, Sigler and Happala transported the department’s gun storage to McMinnville and said that the 120 pounds of weaponry were dumped into the smelter.
“It’s literally like in the movies, they just dump it into a smelter and incinerate it,” Happala said at the Jan. 21 meeting.
Happala estimated that there were 65 guns, ranging from small handheld firearms to long-barreled weapons, and Sigler told the council the assortment was a “mixed bag.”
“We have seized them over the years from cases that are closed now,” Sigler said. “It’s a big mixed bag.”
The King City Police Department is the only department in Washington County yet to receive accreditation from the Northwest Accreditation Alliance. Happala emphasized that the department’s accreditation reflects its commitment to the community and said the department still had a good amount of the process left to fulfill in the coming months.
“It’s part of showing the community that the police department operates at a really high standard as far as policies and procedures go; across a whole spectrum of policies and procedures,” Happala said.
