PHOENIX --
A Tempe police officer has been arrested and accused of taking evidence.
Detective Elliot Campbell, an 11-year veteran, was arrested on Tuesday morning. The department said he took the evidence for personal use.
Campbell worked in a plainclothes capacity and was involved in numerous undercover operations, police said. They will not release a photo of him to protect the safety of undercover officers.
Police said they searched Campbell's work vehicle and found four evidence envelopes that were checked out of the Tempe Police Property. Each of the property envelopes had contained gift cards impounded during an investigation completed by Campbell, police said. They found out the cards had been used in stores near Campbell’s residence.
A refrigerator, a clothes washer, a watch and some tools also were checked out of the property and evidence facility by Campbell after he falsely told evidence custodians he was going to return the property to the owner, according to police.
"Detective Campbell did this, he knew what he was doing. He basically fraudulently obtained those items by telling the property custodian he was taking them for one purpose when he was actually taking them for his personal use," said Sgt. Steve Carbajal, with the Tempe Police Department.
Campbell resigned from the department and admitted to checking the items out of the evidence facility for personal use, police said.
Campbell was charged with two counts of theft of a credit card, 10 counts of tampering with evidence, one count of forgery, one count of burglary and one count of theft.
Tempe Police believe Campbell acted alone, but they are looking into their procedures for evidence check out.
"We are going to be in the process of reviewing our policies and procedures to make sure that we do what we can to prevent this from happening again," said Carbajal.
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