Oregon State Police Beef Up Security after Firing Range Lights Shot Out

Someone squeezed off more than 50 rounds to shoot out overhead lights inside the locked firing range at the Oregon State Police crime lab last summer.

But a state police investigator gave up on trying to find the culprit or culprits.

Lax security at the metro forensic firing range in Clackamas County – used to test guns and run ballistics analyses – gave him little to go on, he said.

The lab had no system in place to track who used the range and when. One of a handful of keys to the range hung on a peg that anyone could grab. A manager lost his key while looking into the damage.

State police halted the internal inquiry “due to the lack of systems in place to monitor and/or document the time, date, individual use, actions performed within the firing range, or evidence indicating how and when the damage was caused,” according to the slim findings, released to The Oregonian/OregonLive in response to a public records request.

Though the investigation doesn’t say it, the report points to a probable inside job or a perpetrator who at least knew enough about lab operations to gain access. But the investigator also notes that he couldn’t prove the damage was intentional.

Now, almost eight months after the apparent vandalism, state police are moving to add a card system to track who goes in and out of the range, said Capt. Kyle Kennedy, an agency spokesperson. The agency is in the procurement process, he said.

The poor security falls well below basic best practices, experts said.

In Portland, for instance, anyone who uses the indoor firing range in the basement of Portland Police Bureau’s Central Precinct must sign in and out on a paper tracking system. The bureau also tracks who enters the range using key fobs. At its training division range, officers schedule times to use it and then must still sign in and out through a paper log.

“It’s almost an implied industry standard that you would keep track of who enters the range and engages in live fire, particularly if it’s for forensic purposes,” said Aaron Forum, a Colorado-based firearms expert and former Army Special Operations weapons armorer. He owned a private indoor gun range and helps design them.

"Who shot up the range?"

State police forensic scientists Leland Samuelson and Shawn Malikowski discovered the damage on June 13 when they went into the range to test fire a gun in the water tank and turned on the lights.

They noticed someone had shot multiple light fixtures near the range’s target area, with shattered glass and plastic debris on the floor.

Target stands also were “laying shot up all over the floor,” Samuelson told an investigator and noted “it was clear that it was freshly done, and neither of us had been in the range all week.’”

When the two came back into the lab office, they asked, “Hey, who shot up the range?” recalled Dan Alessio, a firearms analyst who works at the lab.

The investigation found more than 50 bullet strikes on an unspecified number of light fixtures and ceiling baffles as well as bullet strikes to PVC pipe stands that held up targets.

There are no security cameras in the firing range or focused on the entrance to the range. The range is in a detached structure separate from the main lab building.

Workers would access the range by leaving the main building through a south corridor or exiting the main building through a vehicle bay. Security cameras cover those areas, but the investigative report said it was “unlikely” either of those cameras would have provided information that could have helped the inquiry.

Lab employees use the range to fire guns to check if they work properly and to produce fired bullets and fired cartridge casings for comparison for forensic analysis to crime scene evidence.

Under agency rules, there must be two people in the range at any time, the shooter and a spotter.

Supervisor lost key

Only a handful of employees had keys to the range, but others had access through a shared key, according to the investigation.

John Dyer, forensic manager and supervisor of the lab’s firearms and chemistry section, said he had one key, four firearms examiners each had a key and one key hung from a magnetic hook in the firearms section office for two lab technicians to use. The lab techs regularly enter the lab to check that the range’s fire extinguisher and eye wash are working.

Sally Howe, one of the lab techs, told the investigator that the shared key was accessible to “just about anyone.”

When Dyer was interviewed in November he said he had misplaced his own key to the range.

“In the process of investigating this particular incident, I set my key down somewhere. … I have not been able to locate my key,” he said, according to his interview transcript.

Once he learned of the damage, Dyer said he documented it with photos and presented a report to the laboratory director, Elizabeth Flannery.

“Then I waited ‘cause I was told that there would be a personnel investigation,” he said.

Dyer told the investigator that state police should address the “lack of accountability” regarding the use of the range and suggested an electronic lock that would record comings and goings, not just a written log.

Lack of security cameras

Brian Robertson, a forensic manager at the lab who supervises latent print analysis, interviewed only seven people who had keys to the range or regular access.

He said the assignment of metal keys wasn’t documented in any state police database, but he learned who was given keys through interviews.

Robertson’s investigation began in early November, five months after the shooting. It appears an initial inquiry was done by the lab director and then Robertson did a follow-up investigation, Kennedy said.

Robertson’s report, delivered in January, said he reviewed key card access records for entry to the firearms lab, which is housed in the same building as the range, during the hours of 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. on June 3 through June 13.

He said he found nothing out of the ordinary in the movement of workers but didn’t interview everyone who entered and exited the firearms lab during those hours.

Samuelson, one of the forensic scientists who discovered the damage, had told Robertson that he wondered “whether somebody came in over the weekend or off hours and used the range.”

He urged the investigator to check security camera footage to determine if anyone was in the building during the weekend or after hours and might have entered the range.

Robertson said he didn’t interview more people because he found nothing to indicate that anyone without an assigned key may have entered the range.

Samuelson also told Robertson that he thought staff from the state Department of Administrative Services might have keys but wasn’t sure.

Kennedy, the state police spokesperson, said the agency found no information indicating that any Administrative Services employees had access to the firing range.

Robertson concluded in a report he signed on Jan. 2 that he couldn’t determine if anyone intentionally caused the damage.

“It is my opinion there is insufficient evidence to move forward with further investigation,” he wrote.

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