Jason Kuchenmeister, Maplewood Police Department Property and Evidence Technician
1). Full Name, Department you work for, How long at Department, Number of officers, official title.
Jason Kuchenmeister, Maplewood Police Department, 4 years in March, currently we have 52 officers, Property and Evidence Technician
2). Who is in the evidence department with you?
Just me, myself and I
2). What is your involvement with MAPET?
I currently serve as the Vice-President for MAPET
3). What are some of your favorite evidence technician/property room manager tasks?
Any time I can get out of the office and run some errands is fun. I like going down to the BCA and submitting evidence.
4). What is the most unique/weird item currently in your Property room?
The most interesting item I have in the property room is a mannequin without its head. Scared the hell out of me, as it is on the top shelf and I didn’t notice it when I was going up the ladder to inventory that shelf for the first time.
5). What is currently your biggest challenge?
Right now my biggest challenge is keeping up with evidence review/disposal. With all of the “other duties as assigned” it’s hard to keep up with getting rid of items.
6). Recent victory in your property room?
We recently purchased two shipping containers to serve as our large item storage. This will house items like car jacks, catalytic convertors, bicycles and other large items that are not temperature sensitive. This should free up some space in my evidence room.
7). What advice would you give to new techs in the field?
Document, document, document. You are never going to remember everytime you moved/released/disposed of an item, so keep notes or type a narrative. You can never have too many reminders of why you did something.