now thats good news. cops loose track of 539 victimless drug war crimes Original Article 539 county drug cases dismissed They were among hundreds forgotten by police, prosecutor says By Kim Smith and Becky Pallack ARIZONA DAILY STAR Pima County prosecutors and law enforcement agencies lost track of hundreds of drug possession cases during the last four years, allowing more than 500 suspects to escape prosecution. Officials with the Tucson Police Department and the Pima County Sheriff's Department were dismayed this week when they received a letter from Deputy County Attorney Tom Rankin announcing the dismissals of 539 felony drug cases. Nearly 300 of the cases were Tucson Police Department cases, some as old as 2001, said police Capt. Kevin Mayhew. Another 141 were Pima County Sheriff's Department cases. The rest were from other law enforcement agencies. News of the case dismissals angered several neighborhood leaders. The cases were among hundreds that had been sent back to detectives for follow-up interviews or were awaiting crime lab results and were then forgotten, said Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall on Friday. There are more than 10,000 cases filed with her office every year and when one considers 250 cases are filed every month with the narcotics unit, the number of dismissed cases is small, LaWall said. Moreover, 85 to 95 percent of the dismissed cases were for possession, LaWall said. None involved large investigations or serious offenders. "This is not an enormous, huge problem," she said. Rankin discovered the uncharged cases in September, reviewed them and requested follow-up investigations when appropriate, LaWall said. The rest were dismissed because there was no likelihood of conviction or they were mandatory probation cases. "There wasn't a system in our office to notify (prosecutors) 'Hey, time's passed. What happened to this case?' and I'm assuming the Police Department didn't have a tracking system either, to say, 'These are the cases we're supposed to bring back to the County Attorney's Office,' " LaWall said. "Nobody had a formal tracking system. We now have a formal tracking system." The dismissals angered Dora Dalton, former vice president of the Barrio Anita neighborhood group, bordered by Speedway on the north, Granada Avenue on the east, Interstate 10 on the west and St. Mary's Road on the south. "We might as well give these criminals the keys to our homes and the keys to the city and let them run it," Dalton said. "We have had a drug problem in our community and we are very good about communicating with the police to let them know what is going on, where the drug houses are and who the drug dealers are. Now that they are dropping all of the cases, people might not want to report anything because it will seem like a waste of time if nothing is going to come of it." Blanche White, secretary of Oak Flower Neighborhood Association, agreed. The neighborhood borders are Glenn Street on the north, Columbus Boulevard on the east, Alvernon Way on the west and Grant Road on the south. "I don't see how we can accomplish anything if they keep turning them loose. It is just frustrating for everybody involved," she said. "We are trying to clean up our neighborhoods, but we can't do that if these people are being let off of the hook." Police officials said they were confused after receiving the letter from Rankin, telling them of the dismissals and outlining a new policy that should solve the problem. "The letter gave us the impression our follow-up (investigation) was substandard and therefore the cases are being dismissed," Mayhew said. "If there was this problem with our follow-up investigations, why wouldn't we be consulted, asked about it?" Still, Mayhew said the Police Department is looking at its detectives' actions to see what role, if any, they played in the problem. "If we've done something wrong, we need to fix it," said Mayhew. The problem was the lack of the case-tracking system in the county attorney's narcotics unit, not the follow-up investigations, LaWall said. There isn't anyone to blame, she said. Other units in her office, such as homicide, do have their own tracking systems, she said. "It was a system failure," LaWall said. "When problems happen on an airplane, the machine doesn't work right, you can't just start blaming people, you just fix it. You fix it and you make it run right. Blame is pretty useless." Prosecuting drug offenses remains a high priority for her office, LaWall said. "Neighborhood drug matters are a big matter for this office, for law enforcement. I've got a prosecutor dedicated to dealing with community, quality of life crimes," LaWall said. LaWall acknowledged the situation could have been handled differently, however. Instead of sending the letters, her office should have sat down with law enforcement commanders to discuss it. She planned to meet with Tucson Police Chief Richard Miranda Friday, and Chief Criminal Deputy David Berkman has spoken with George Heaney, Sheriff's Department bureau chief. Heaney said the Sheriff's Department didn't interpret the letter as placing blame on detectives, but sheriff's officials were surprised they weren't asked for input on cutoff dates and dismissal guidelines. LaWall said that if anyone in law enforcement believes the cases that were dismissed are prosecutable, her office will review them. To ensure the problem doesn't crop up again, LaWall said detectives will receive documents every 30, 60, and 90 days outlining what materials are still needed by prosecutors. Their supervisors will receive copies of those documents at the 60- and 90-day marks. Gone are the days when prosecutors and detectives had small caseloads and saw each other frequently enough to remind each other of the status of their cases, LaWall said. The growth of the county is hampering the County Attorney's Office in other ways as well, LaWall said. Right now, there is a backlog of 236 domestic violence cases awaiting review by prosecutors, LaWall said. No arrests will be made in those cases unless or until charges are filed. None of them are beyond the statute of limitations now, but prosecutors are very mindful of that deadline, LaWall said. The eight prosecutors who work in her misdemeanor unit handle 4,200 cases a year each, LaWall said. City prosecutors, by comparison, handle 2,200 cases each annually. Reporter Alexis Huicochea contributed to this story. Contact reporter Kim Smith at 573-4241 or kimsmith@azstarnet.com. Contact reporter Becky Pallack at 629-9412 or bpallack@azstarnet.com.