The Rifle Police Department has many officers that do their best to help the community and the surrounding area. They’re on the ground, talking to people and are often the face of the department. 

But behind the scenes, officers have a lot of help to keep track of everything they do and keep records of all the evidence collected and reports on what’s happened. 

One of these people is Shelby Beitzel. 

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Beitzel is the records and evidence manager for Rifle PD at only 33 years old and was born in Glenwood Springs. 

“I grew up in Silt and went to Coal Ridge High School,” Beitzel said. “I went to the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and briefly in California, which was very cool, but also expensive. I came back here and live in Rifle now.”

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Beitzel started liking forensics when she was a teen and studied them. She can also do crime analysis on the data that comes in from the officers. 

“I like math and equations and I enjoy organizing,” Beitzel said. 

She was a police officer before working in records and evidence. 

“It was a long path — I started in patrol for two years and then I was a detective for two years and now I’ve been in records and evidence for three years,” Beitzel said. “I was actually the department’s first female detective.”

Beitzel still uses her detective skills in her records and evidence role. 

“I still need to talk to people because I’m the sex offender registry manager and sometimes they lie about their appearances or other information,” she said. “Unfortunately, that’s not how that works.”

Beitzel, like most officers, keeps a wall between her personal life and her work. 

“I have to step back, hear all the facts, and do my best to make a decision,” she said. “I still do that when I’m in this role.”

Part of Beitzel’s job is looking at old records that have been requested by the public and redacting them as applied. 

“It’s hard to read details sometimes of old reports and typing out interviews can be hard because you have to go back and listen over and over again to make sure you’re getting the right words down,” Beitzel said. “It can be really hard.”

As an officer, Beitzel didn’t realize how much the records and evidence department did, but she remembered being praised for her handwriting as an officer. 

“They’d always thank me for having nice handwriting, which I thought, that’s nice, but then I got into records and evidence and I realized that a lot of officers have terrible handwriting,” she said. “Doctor’s handwriting is still worse.” 

Beitzel explained how the process of records and evidence works with the officers on a case. 

“(A) case comes through dispatch, officers respond, and they get the info and hopefully they do the reports within 10 business days, I’ve been keeping track,” she said. “They do follow-ups and that can take years, especially for detectives, but then they submit everything to their sergeant, who then hands it all over to records.”

Beitzel said they make sure everything matches, that all property belonging to the officer, like cameras or video footage, matches the report and then they send it to where it needs to go. 

“We disperse it as needed, to the courts, to YouthZone, wherever it needs to go,” she said. “Then we get it back at the end of that case.”

For evidence collected at a scene, the officers at the scene “bag and tag,” where they put evidence into a bag, seal it, initial it and bring it back. 

“After they bring it back, we have lockers they put the evidence into, where after it’s shut, you can’t get back into it,” Beitzel explained. “That’s when I or the other two in records and evidence go into the evidence room where the lockers back into and take the evidence and record it.”

Beitzel logs the evidence and then puts it into a separate storage room in its proper location so it can be grabbed easily when needed. 

“Then the lockers unlock and you can put more evidence inside,” Beitzel explained. 

Beitzel said that if there was an evidence collecting team so the officers didn’t have to do it, she’d be on it. For now, she settles for the evidence audit once a year. 

“It’s when we go through and organize all the evidence,” Beitzel said. “It used to take three days, but I’ve gotten it down to a day and a half.”

Depending on the case, Beitzel said evidence is kept for different amounts of time. 

“Sexual assault evidence is kept forever, felonies are kept for 10 years and misdemeanors are kept for five,” she said. “We keep evidence past any appeal processes, but if it can’t be fought, or the case is entirely over, then it goes.”

Leftover evidence needs to be gotten rid of and they have different ways of doing so at the police departments.

“Drugs are burned,” Beitzel said. “Parachute PD has this burn barrel for that.”

Purses or clothes are thrown away if they can’t be given back to the owner, which they try to do first, Beitzel said. 

“Drug paraphernalia is smashed, since they’re mostly made of glass,” she said. “Electronics get donated with their info wiped and sometimes we give them to victims who need that help.”

Firearms, Beitzel said, are cut up. 

“They get cut in half with a big saw,” she said. “It’s really cool to see.”

Records have a different retention rate, Beitzel said, sometimes following the same time as evidence, but other records have odd time spans that she’s confused about as well. 

“Some are supposed to be kept for 99 years,” she said. “At that point, why not just make it 100?”

Beitzel gets a lot of data from the officers and crime statistics and she uses her crime analysis skills to see which parts of Rifle could do with more help. 

“I can look at these calls from this area and can figure out when that call might happen again or where hot spots are,” Beitzel said. “Downtown is a hot spot, because there’s bars and people are out and about.”

Beitzel said she sometimes misses patrolling and being a detective.

“My goal, when I took this role, was that I’d always go back to being a detective or on patrol at some point,” she said. “But I’m great where I am right now.”

When Beitzel isn’t lovingly organizing evidence and records, she’s snowmobiling with her family in the winter and off-roading in the summer. 

“I also enjoy gardening now that I’m older,” she said. “I love watching ‘Brooklyn 99,’ ‘The Office,’ ‘Friends,’ and right now, my husband and I are watching ‘Severance.'”