GROUND
ELEVEN: POLICE MISCONDUCT
[See also Ground Six Sections A through
E and Section
I and Sections
K through L.]
1. Chapel’s Drug Dealer
Audiotapes And Other Records
Chapel
was active in suppressing drug trafficking in the Buford area. As a part of
this effort, he audio-taped conversations while on patrol and on his telephone
at his gym. In addition, he had several roles of undeveloped film that he had
taken while on surveillance. Chapel kept these items of information in the trunk
of his patrol car. After his arrest, these items disappeared while in the
custody of the GCPD. Burnette’s notes[1]
show that the film that came into his possession was sent for development;
however there is no indication of this potential evidence after this note.
2. Thirty-Eight Caliber
Shell Casing Found On Victim’s Property
Weldon Seay was an
across-the-street neighbor of the Thompson's at the time of the murder. He also
owned the property next to the Thompson trailer. At that time his son, Keith
Seay and Amy Parker occupied a trailer on that lot. After the murder, the
senior Seay found a spent .38 caliber shell casing on that property. He called
and reported this recovery to the Gwinnett County Police Department, and a GCPD
officer responded to the call and collected the casing. In conversation, the
officer identified the casing as a .38 caliber cartridge and told Seay that
they were looking for such evidence. Again once in GCPD custody, the shell
casing simply vanished.
3. Loaded Thirty-Eight
Caliber Revolver Found At American Inn
Between
Thanksgiving and Christmas of 1993, a mud covered, loaded .38 caliber revolver
was found by an employee near a dumpster behind the American Inn in Buford two
days after Michael Thompson, the victim’s son, had stayed at that motel. The
revolver was the type used in Emogene Thompson’s murder and two rounds had been
expended. Tim Marco, the employee, picked up the gun with a stick and placed it
into a clear plastic bag then called the Gwinnett County Police Department. A
white male GCPD officer in uniform responded to the call. A second man, again a
white male, in civilian clothes, who Marco assumed also to be a GCPD officer,
arrived shortly after the first. Marco provided the officers with the hotel
reservation book from October of 1993 to that date which showed that
reservations made by other subjects involved in the Thompson murder case. Marco watched as the two officers left the
motel and stood in the parking lot talking for at least ten minutes. Then one
of the officers went to his vehicle’s trunk and removed a cloth or rag. He then
opened the plastic bag and dumped the gun out. Picking up the gun with the
cloth, he wiped it clean of the mud. He then put the gun back into the clear
plastic bag. Once in GCPD custody, this weapon simply vanished. It was never
sent to the GBI crime lab for ballistics testing. It simply disappeared.
When questioned about the weapon,
Lt. John Latty could tell little of what happened to the weapon other than he
did not feel that it could have been tested.
[John Latty, Trial, Page 4488, Line 9]
By Mr. Moore
Q.
Are you familiar with a .38
caliber gun that was recovered from the American Inn around 1993, December
1993?
A. Yes,
sir.
Q. And
was that gun ever tested?
A. No. I believe that gun was all rusty when it was
found.
Q. Was
it ever taken to the crime lab to determine if it could be tested?
A. I
can't remember specifically. If you're
referring to the one that the fellow who was the son of the manager found that
behind a Dumpster or something and turned over to officers; is that the one
you're referring to?
Q. It
was Mike Plunkett that found it up at the American Inn in Buford.
A. Yes,
sir. As I recall, that gun was rusty
and it had been -- had been out for a very long time. It was all rusted up.
Q. My
question is was there any attempt made to take it to the crime lab to see if
they could learn anything from it?
A. I
don't know, but probably not because it was in such horrible condition.
Q. Who
made the decision that it was in such horrible condition?
A. Well,
I don't know. If a gun has been out so
long that it's rusted up and you know that the bore's rusted out, you can get a
pretty good idea that probably you're not going to be able to do much with it.
Q. Did
you ever see that gun?
A. I
don't recall seeing it, no, sir.
Q. Were
you told about that gun by the -- the officers that found it?
A. Yes,
sir. I went and talked to the manager
when we got -- when we got that piece of information, I went and talked to the
manager, the lady who worked there, and got all that information and we tracked
it down and found out who had recovered the gun, the circumstances. It had all been handled and documented by
the officers. And as I recall, after we
identified the officers and got the information, it was something that was of
no value to us in the investigation.
Q. And
who made that determination that it was no value to you?
A. I
suppose we did as the investigators.
Q. Who
is we?
A. Me,
Burnette, that it was -- and I don't know.
I don't know for sure the gun wasn't sent. I don't think it was. As
I recall, the gun was -- was old and rusted out if we're talking about the same
gun.
Q. Okay. Did anybody ever -- did any investigators
ever see that gun, to your knowledge?
A. I
can't -- I can't say for sure. I -- all
I remember is getting the information, and initially it sounded like it was
something we needed, and we went through the process of getting all the
information on it. I don't really
remember what -- what happened to the gun.
Q. What
does it mean if it says on a report 'forward to CID' and that's checked?
A. Well,
we normally, if we have found property, we get those reports or get copies of
those reports and, particularly, if it might be related to a case, a gun is
something that if we -- if an officer recovers a gun, for instance, then that's
something that they write a report on for -- a recovered property report, and
then it's forwarded to us for us to look at in case it might be somehow related
to some case we're working on or to try to find the owner in some instances.
Q. Okay. My question is, the term 'forward to CID,'
what does that mean? If an officer puts
that on his incident report --
A. It
means forward the report to CID for -- so that we'll have the information.
Q. To
the criminal investigation division?
A. Yes,
sir.
Q. Okay. And what happens to the gun then?
A. It varies. You know, there's an awful lot -- there's an awful lot of found
property, lost property. Usually on
guns, we attempt to locate the owner. I
think one of the procedures is we send them to the crime lab, and they test
fire the ones that they can against -- to try to match them up to other crimes
just in case those guns may have been used in other crimes and can be matched
up. Standard procedure.
According
to the trial testimony, Chapel’s alibi witnesses were never interviewed by the
police. The firefighters who were with Chapel on that night gave their captain
statements that Chapel was with them that night until 10 PM or later. The alibi
witnesses that Chapel stated were at the gym that night, when he stopped
briefly to pick up the day’s receipts, were not interviewed at the time of the
murder. Police testimony indicated that one of these, Van Parker, was
interviewed at the time of the trial, and that he could not remember the
circumstances of that night.
There
is evidence that Van Parker and another of Chapel’s gym customers, Rob
Thompson, were interviewed by the police, specifically Investigator Burnette,
and that this information was never turned over to defense investigators or
attorneys[2].
C. Officer Statements Are Changed To Fit
Circumstances
GCPD Sergeant Donald Stone
told Captain Ronald Davis that Officer Chapel was with him at Fire 14 until 10
or 10:15 PM on the night of the murder, and Capt. Davis recorded the statement.
[Ronald Davis, Trial, Page 4283, Line 21]
By Mr. Moore
Q. Okay. You're not aware of that? Okay.
Now, the same day that you talked to Mike up there about -- and he told
you he thought it might be some druggers or her son or something like that, you
had a conversation with Sergeant Stone too, didn't you?
A. That's
correct.
Q. Okay. And Sergeant Stone told you that Mike was
with him at the fire station till ten or 10:15 that night, didn't he?
A. That's
correct.
Q. And
this was on April 20, 1993?
A. That's
correct.
Q. That
was four days after the crime?
A. It
was on Tuesday night, yes.
Q. Okay. The discovery of the crime. So Sergeant Stone's memory would likely have
been fresher then than it was later, wouldn't it, four days after the crime?
A. It
-- possibly, yes.
Q. Okay. That's the reason you took the statement,
wasn't it, because he told you a time and you wrote it down to preserve that --
what he had told you?
A. The
reason I wrote the statement, you know, again -- I didn't ask him the question,
you know, and we were talking about his family and things of that nature. And he questioned me about -- about the
homicide. I asked him, you know, what
he thought. When I asked him who he
thought the officer might be and he came out with the, 'Well, I have an alibi,'
to me that was significant. Also, if
you'll notice on the form that I wrote that's a -- it's not a regular
supplement sheet that we use. I thought
it was so significant at the time that when I left the precinct I immediately
pulled over and wrote that down so I could be as clear with it as I could
possibly be.
Q. Okay.
A. Because
I thought that it was significant that he would offer a statement like
that. That's not something that I have
heard from other policeman that I have dealt with when you ask them questions
to say -- you know, use the terminology that 'I have an alibi.'
Q. Okay. Now, when you talked with Sergeant Stone,
did he volunteer the times to you, too, or did you question him?
A. I
asked Sergeant Stone about that because when he had said that he was there, I
went in to see what Sergeant Stone said because Sergeant Stone was there at the
time.
Q. Okay. And you thought what Sergeant Stone told you
was significant, too, so you wrote it down also?
A. Yes,
I did.
Q. And
you --
A. Because he gave a specific time and I
felt like that it was necessary that we -- you know, when he gives that time,
that I should record it. And then I
recorded it as correctly and accurately as I could as quickly as possible.
When it
became important in establishing a case against Chapel, Stone changed his
estimate of the time Chapel left the firehouse to from 9:20 to 9:30 PM, over a
full hour earlier. The question is what did stone know later that he did not
know on April 20th?
D. Incomplete Testimony
Regarding 1994 Search For Victim’s Purse
Typical of the police complete disregard for the truth was Capt. Latty’s testimony at the new trial hearing. In this, Latty assured the Court and all present that the police had made a complete search of the area behind Emogene Thompson’s trailer for any documents and evidence that may have been pertinent to the murder[3]. To have made a complete search of this area, including the extensive wooded area behind the trailers, would have taken several dozen’s of police officers and certainly more than the limited amount of twilight that the time of the search indicated. Police officers, like the rest of us, must promise to tell the whole truth when they testify. It is apparent that Capt. Latty felt that he had a special relationship with God and that he was His agent[4] on earth placed here to punish evildoers, but this kind of verbal dancing is disgusting regardless of the motivation.
E. Improper Lineup
Construction
The
Gwinnett County Police Department constructed and utilized an 8-photo lineup in
which Chapel was unfairly highlighted[5].
F. Ignoring Crime Scene And Autopsy Reports
That the
Prosecution ignored the crime scene and autopsy reports proves that they were
not interested in the truth[6].
They were interested only in convicting Chapel of this murder.