Glendale Police HQ water leak prompts hand inspection of case files

GLENDALE, Ariz. - A water leak at the Glendale Police Department headquarters is forcing members of staff to hand inspect more than a thousand cases.

The leak happened over the summer on July 12, resulting in dampened evidence. It also prompted police to notify prosecutors, and start a log of how evidence was protected.

"We want the public to know that absolutely no cases have been compromised by this water leak," said Sgt. Randy Stewart.

The leak originated from a pipe that was connected to the air conditioning system.

"[2:00 a.m.], one of the officers that was working came in to log some property noticed there was some water, so obviously none of the people from the Property Room were here at that time," said Sgt. Stewart.

PD HQ pipe burst impacted evidence room

Officials with the Glendale Police Department gave details surrounding a water leak at an evidence room inside their department's headquarters that happened over the summer.

According to Sgt. Stewart, several items of evidence were packaged in boxes and plastic bags. Some saw no issues, while others were kept in paper envelopes: items like DNA-sensitive material, including blood.

Out of approximately 1,000 cases that were removed, about 150 of them were impacted. Officials said less than 20 of those were homicide or sexual assault cases.

"Keep in mind when we do a swab on something like that, one, we take a controlled sample and then we take a test sample, so those samples are separated, so either which way at the very least still have that controlled sample that can be used if needed as evidence," said Sgt. Stewart.

It still remains unclear what specific evidence was damaged, but the department reassuring the public everything will continue as normal, and there’s no pending court cases for the evidence that had the most damage.

Meanwhile, officials with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office have been made of aware of the situation.

"I don’t want it to get blown out of proportion. This was simply just taking items out, making sure that they were dry, putting them back in and, really that was it," said Sgt. Stewart. "It was a lot of work, obviously, but overall effect on the case is we just don’t believe it will have any effect on any ongoing cases."