Byrnes Mill Police Chief Frank T. Selvaggio, who took over the job late last year, said he quickly discovered a lot of problems in the department, including a lack of rules for the evidence room and police officers in general.
Selvaggio took over as chief in October, and one of the first changes he made was to close and lock the evidence room, which contained drugs and weapons that were not packaged and labeled correctly, as well as a rape kit without a case number to identify it.
“When I went into the evidence room, I noticed there were some problems with packaging of evidence,” Selvaggio said.
He said he has set up a secondary evidence room for the time being and has sent Officer Justin Robinson to an International Association of Property and Evidence class to be certified as an evidence officer.
Robinson attended the certification class in December, and on Feb. 18, he began an official audit of the evidence room.
“The lead evidence technician from the Arnold Police Department (Omar Ruiz) has also been working with Officer Robinson,” Selvaggio said.
For now, no evidence is going in and out of the old evidence room, unless needed in a court case. Once the audit is complete, old evidence will be destroyed and Officer Robinson will train other officers how to fill out paperwork and package evidence correctly, Selvaggio said.
“We have evidence back to 1991, and obviously a lot of these cases have been adjudicated,” he said.
Selvaggio said the old evidence room will open again once the audit is complete and a new procedure of handling evidence is put in place.
General orders
Selvaggio said he also quickly learned the department had no general orders, so he’s working to remedy that.
“I was shocked and stunned. I had never heard of a police department operating without general orders before,” he said. “General orders are basically a set of rules and regulations a department goes by. It tells officers what they can and can’t do. It tells them when they can use force and what levels of force they can use to make an arrest. It’s a guideline for them to know how to do their job, but it also protects the city when they don’t do their job properly.”
Not having general orders puts the city and residents at risk, city attorney Bob Sweeney said during the Feb. 20 Board of Alderpersons meeting.
Selvaggio said residents benefit from general orders, too, because it lets them know they have a “professional” police department protecting them.
So far, a department mission has been created, along with general orders for use of force, tasers, body cameras and vehicles, Selvaggio said.
He said he created core values for the department during his first week on the job, calling for integrity, professionalism and community collaboration.
Selvaggio said Sweeney has been helping him create the new general orders. He said more general orders are needed, but it will take a long time to finish them all.
Currently, Selvaggio is working on several general orders about arrests.
“I am using other department’s general orders to kind of mold ours,” he said.
Weapons
Selvaggio said he also has been inventorying the weapons the department owns or has on loan.
“When I started here, the department had 15 firearms in inventory,” he said.
Selvaggio said several are automatic weapons that the department doesn’t use.
“They have not been used since I got here and we won’t use them,” he said. “I see no need for us to have automatic weapons.”
Selvaggio said he is looking to sell two fully automatic Glock pistols to a licensed third-class dealer and is asking $2,400 for both of them.
He said he also hopes to sell an M16 automatic rifle.
In addition, Selvaggio said the department has three fully automatic M16s and one fully automatic M14 on loan from the state’s Law Enforcement Support Office program, and he wants to get rid of those, too.
“We weren’t paying anything for them, but I don’t have a use for them,” he said.
Selvaggio said he plans to return all four of those firearms, but it will take some time due to the paperwork involved.
Officers
Selvaggio also has been searching for a few new officers.
He has hired a part-time detective for the department, Mike Dueker, 64, of St. Louis, a retired detective and sergeant from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
For the last eight years, Dueker has worked as an investigator for the St. Louis City Circuit Attorney’s Office.
Dueker’s first day on the job for the Byrnes Mill Police Department was Feb. 12. He will work about 16 hours a week, earning $14 an hour, Selvaggio said.
He said Dueker’s main duties will be to follow up with criminal reports.
Selvaggio said he also hopes Dueker will be able to share his experience with some of the other officers.
Selvaggio said a full-time officer, John Navratil of St. Louis County, resigned on Feb. 19, after only two and a half months with the department.
So, Selvaggio is currently looking to hire a full-time officer, as well as another part-time officer.
Right now, the department has five full-time officers, including Selvaggio, two part-time officers and three reserve officers.
New patch
Selvaggio said he also has redesigned and ordered a new patch for the Police Department.
He said the new patch has more color, the river and the mill that once operated along the Big River, where Byrnes Mill City Park is located now.
“One of the things I am trying to do here is change the image of the Police Department,” Selvaggio said. “It makes it a little bit more part of the community with a patch depicting what the city is named after. I thought that would add a little bit more pride to the department.”
The department has ordered 200 patches at $1.10 each, and they are expected to arrive sometime over the next month.
Selvaggio said he didn’t need Board of Alderpersons approval to order the new patch because of the low expense. However, he received approval from the city administrator and showed the patch to the board on Feb. 6.