In December, a Fayette resident was shocked to discover dozens of plastic bags full of drug paraphernalia in a local dumpster. But it wasn’t dumped by drug users; it was all in Fayette Police Department evidence bags.
The dumpster, located behind C&R Market, Fayette’s only grocery store, contained evidence bags full of syringes, marijuana, pill bottles with patient information, loose pills and other illegal items, photos obtained by KBIA show.
Some of the substances appeared to still be in bags, while others were scattered throughout the dumpster. The bags were labeled with names of suspects, arresting officers, case numbers and more.
Stephanie Gilpin, a community health worker and the resident who photographed and reported finding the drugs to the city, shared her concerns at a local meeting of the Board of Aldermen. Many from the area turned out to see how the city would handle the issue.
Gilpin said she stayed until Fayette police officers came to clean up the evidence on the day she found them, but initially wasn’t met with much of a concerned response.
"If this was a careless mistake, hopefully it is addressed and will never be overlooked again," Gilpin said at the meeting. "If this has been policy, I think it is time for a change."
Gilpin also offered to help the city if they needed assistance finding incinerators to destroy the drugs, a process she said was far safer than disposing of them in a dumpster.
Then-Mayor Jeremy Dawson said the situation “wasn't taken care of appropriately."
“We are investigating it and how to handle it. That was not followed the way it needed to be,” Dawson said. “But from now on, it's basically going to be a city personnel policy decision to get that taken care of. And at the same time, we're going to be reviewing the disposal of evidence of policy and how we take care of that.”
According to a December 21, 2023, news release, the city’s internal investigation found no wrongdoing by the Fayette Police Department. Fayette Chief of Police David Ford apologized for the incident in the release and stated that the drugs were disposed of “according to existing policy," which he said “required all drugs, including alcohol, to be removed from evidence bags, dispersed in the dumpster, and sprayed with liquid.”
However, a records request by KBIA to the city of Fayette for that evidence disposal policy revealed that no official policy ever existed.
Outside the Board of Aldermen meeting in December, Joe Jefferies, a community member and certified recovery support specialist, shared his concern about seized drugs finding their way back into the community after the incident in Fayette.
“It's troubling to think about that being redistributed into our community after countless tax dollars were spent to remove those substances from our streets,” Jefferies said.
Policies currently in place from the Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Agency recommend destruction of drugs by incineration after review from a prosecutor and approval from a judge — but actual regulations can vary widely from state to state.
Sgt. Kyle Green, spokesperson for the Missouri State Highway Patrol, said that local law enforcement agencies make their own policies and aren’t required to follow Highway Patrol protocols. The Missouri State Highway Patrol policy requires narcotic evidence to be destroyed by incineration after it’s determined the evidence is no longer needed.
“What we will do then is collect those various items that are in our evidence locker that are set to be destroyed, and they are taken to a location and incinerated,” Green said. “But it's only after we've received the proper paperwork for those things to be destroyed. It's not something that we do on our own.”
Green said incineration is just one part of a multi-step disposal process that aims to ensure drug evidence doesn’t end up back in the community.
But Nathan Nickolaus, city attorney for Fayette, says before it was and continues to be a struggle for Fayette Police to access these kinds of costly resources.
“The important thing to understand is that it's a small department, small town, and they don't have the equipment and the resources and the policies that larger departments have,” Nickolaus said.
In the next installment of the 'Weight of Evidence,' we examine how larger law enforcement agencies like the Missouri State Highway Patrol safely dispose of their evidence - and why it matters.
Catch The Weight of Evidence Part Two on KBIA 91.3 FM on Tuesday, June 25 at 7:44 a.m. and 5:45 p.m., online at kbia.org, or online and in print in the Columbia Missourian.
