A massive clean up is underway at the Bartow Police Department after a fire started in the evidence room Thursday afternoon.
Workers spent the day removing ceiling tiles and insulation, while a line of fans in the hallway worked to get rid of the strong smell of smoke.
Bartow Police Chief, Joe Hall said employees noticed the fire just around 5:30 p.m. coming out of one of the ventilation systems in the evidence room, which is in a separate part of the police department.
“It was in the secure area of the evidence room," Hall said. "We haven’t completed the audit yet but there could’ve been anything from burglary cases, narcotics cases, firearms cases.”
Chief Hall said the fire most likely destroyed old evidence in closed cases, but there’s still potential water damage to other evidence.
“I really don’t think that the area that the fire was contained in had any vital evidence of any pending cases that we had,” Hall said.
Even though the chief says he doesn’t think evidence in any active cases was destroyed in the fire, there are some defense attorneys looking to test that theory.
Defense attorney Robert Norgard said he reacted how he thinks most attorneys did when he heard the news.
“The first thing I did was I texted my law partner and said when we get in today lets check and what cases we have with Bartow Police Department,” Norgard said.
Norgard says the compromised evidence could weaken the state’s cases against people he defends, but it could also potentially hurt his clients.
“In some instances evidence is actually helpful to the defendant, and if the evidence is destroyed, something that can be favorable to the defendant is no longer there to be used,” he said.
Chief Hall says it’s still too soon to tell either way. For now, he says they’re drying off, cleaning up and auditing the evidence they have.
There is still no word on what caused the fire.