Marine Patrol to Auction Seized Kayaks, Surplus Gear Online

Ever wonder what the Mercer Island Police Marine Patrol does with a sea kayak found abandoned, or a small racing sailboat that had mysteriously drifted into the I-90 floating bridge?

Property Room.com, an online police auction site, recently announced that the city's waterborne officers have contracted with them to take seized, forfeited or surplus items from the city's police department and offers them up for auction to over 1.3 million registered online shoppers. 

The Mercer Island Police Department was the first agency in the state to contract with PropertyRoom.com in 2001, motivated by lack of storage space at .

"It’s simply an easy way to dispose of property that we don’t want to throw in the garbage," said Mercer Island Police Commander Leslie Burns.

Burns said the service is similar to eBay, and the company sends out staff to pick up the goods. After a sale has been made on their website, PropertyRoom.com takes a portion out of the proceeds. She estimated the department sees $300 per year in revenues from the auctions.

"We're not really doing it for the money," Burns said.

MIPD Evidence Technician Kelly Donnelly said the company was staffed with representatives with law-enforcement backgrounds who were easy to work with and very understanding of local record keeping and "chain-of-custody" regulations.

Donnelly said the types of items that are handed over to PropertyRoom.com were items that had a likely value of more than $25 — like small electronics, iPods, Cameras, cell phones and pieces of jewelry.

Since the MIPD began using the service, said Donnelly, their storage-space problems in the evidence room have been solved. The last time the city delivered items for auction was in December of last year, with only 25 items.