Investigators never learned why a large quantity of drugs disappeared from the Gwinnett County Police Department, but they did make troubling discoveries about lax oversight of the narcotics unit that may have contributed to officer misconduct.
At the request of Chief Charles Walters, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation began in March 2010 to probe the disappearance of two kilograms of missing cocaine from a safe in the narcotics unit. The police department also conducted its own investigation focused on whether officers followed proper procedures.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained hundreds of pages of documents related to both investigations, which concluded in February, via an Open Records Act request and spent several weeks reviewing them.
According to the files, the GBI discovered that the two missing kilograms of cocaine weren't the only dope to vanish. A larger cache of drugs slated for destruction in 2008 also was unaccounted for. That cache included 25 pounds of marijuana, four and a half kilos of cocaine, and a small quantity of methamphetamine.
In addition, two high-ranking officers were demoted following the scandal for failure to properly supervise the narcotics unit.
One of them, Maj. Bart Hulsey, retired at the end of December just before the demotion was to take effect. The other, Assistant Chief Dan Bruno, also took a voluntary demotion and is now a major, Gwinnett police spokesman Cpl. Edwin Ritter told the AJC.
At the conclusion of the investigation in mid-February, Walters and Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter announced that no criminal charges were filed and no disciplinary action was taken against any officers.
They said the GBI was unable determine if the drugs had been stolen, lost or destroyed.
Documents reveal the department brass put too much trust in the wrong people.
The narcotics unit's former supervisor, Lt. David Butler, told investigators he was "asleep at the wheel" in 2008. He was preoccupied with family problems, which included a brother's illness and a daughter's unplanned pregnancy.
"My world had unfolded in a lot of places," Butler told GBI investigators.
Butler's supervisors also said they relied too heavily on Butler to handle day-to-day operations.
Hulsey, one of three supervisors who oversaw the narcotics unit at various times during Butler's tenure, said "we believed that he walked on water, all of us."
Hulsey said he was shocked when allegations surfaced that Butler and former narcotics investigator Vennie Harden misused money earmarked for undercover investigations.
The two men were indicted on felony charges in February. Butler is accused of taking $4,000 from a safe and making unapproved charges on a department credit card. Harden allegedly forged Butler's name to authorize payment of a confidential informant. Harden and Butler resigned in 2009 in lieu of termination.
Both men said they had no knowledge of what happened to the missing drugs.
Ritter said there wasn't enough evidence to charge anyone with taking the drugs, even though many people suspected that Butler and Harden were responsible.
"It's unfortunate because of the policies that were not in place or being followed back there, this happened and we can't hold somebody accountable," Ritter said.
Harden was described by fellow officers as a street-wise undercover narcotics investigator. An internal affairs investigation discovered he was getting too close to the criminals he investigated.
He checked a confidential informant out of jail so the man could have dinner with his family, and later used $1,200 in police department funds to bond the informant out of jail. Harden also admitted dating a confidential informant's sister.
The fact that Harden somehow afforded flashy clothes, multiple girlfriends and two houses in Lawrenceville and Snellville on his police officer's salary also led his fellow narcotics officers to suspect him, internal police records show. Harden adamantly denied stealing any drugs.
Harden thought they were probably still sitting in evidence somewhere.
"This is Gwinnett County," he told the GBI. "Just silly stuff kind of happens like that."
Butler removed drugs from the safe and boxed them up to be destroyed in 2008. Butler said two officers picked them up and took them to the county's animal control shelter to be incinerated. However, the two officers did not recall ever picking up a box from the narcotics unit, the internal investigation showed. And there are no records of the drugs ever being destroyed.
Butler was present when the two kilograms of cocaine that later went missing were received in the narcotics unit in February 2009. However, by the time that an audit revealed the two kilos were gone in July, Butler had transferred out of the unit.
A GBI investigator asked if Butler if he put two kilos of cocaine in a briefcase and walked out with them.
Butler replied, "No, I certainly did not."
The narcotics unit's policies have been overhauled since Butler and Harden left, Ritter said. The department now conducts quarterly audits of the safes holding money, cash and guns, and it has installed surveillance cameras in the narcotics area.
All the managers that supervised the narcotics unit have retired, transferred or resigned in the past year and a half.
Angel Alonso, a Gwinnett resident and alumnus of the department's Citizen Police Academy, applauded the department.
"Anytime that they see something that is not being followed, they try to correct it immediately and learn from it and do better," Alonso said.
Dacula resident Randolph DeVault was skeptical of the department's claim that it doesn't have enough evidence to charge anyone.
"The usual Catch-22 when it comes to government is everybody points their finger to everybody," DeVault said.
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