Property Division

The Liberty Hill Police Department maintains a safe and secure property and evidence room. Property is divided into three categories, Evidence, Found Property and Safekeeping.  

Evidence is collected during the course of a criminal investigation. Evidence is kept pending the outcome of any criminal/court proceedings. These items can be held indefinitely by the police department depending on the severity of the crime(s). Items taken as evidence can only be released by a court order, regardless the outcome of the criminal/court trial.  

Found Property are items left abandoned, lost or turned in. Any item turned over to the police department is booked into the property room and labelled as Found. Every attempt is made to locate the owner of the property, but in many cases, there is nothing to identify the owner. If an identifiable item is found or turned in, such as a driver’s license, credit card, etc., attempts are made to notify the owner. If the owner cannot be located, these items are returned to their issuing agency, business or destroyed. Other items that are not claimed or returned to their owner are either destroyed, donated or auctioned.  

Safekeeping property items are generally items collected by officers during an arrest or criminal investigation. These items usually cannot go with the person arrested to jail, such as additional clothing, firearms, etc. These items would be booked into the property room as Safekeeping and held for a certain period of time to allow the owner to opportunity to retrieve their property. Similar to Found property, these items will be kept for a period of time before they are either destroyed, donated or auctioned.  

Firearms taken as Safekeeping. At times, firearms are taken as Safekeeping, either from an criminal investigation where the firearm was not part of the crime or by others means. A simple example is if someone is arrested for drunk driving, the criminal charge does not involve a firearm, but an arrest was made and that person may have had a firearm in their possession. To prevent the firearm from being stolen, police will book that firearm as Safekeeping. A firearm recovered in this manner can be returned to the owner by simply notifying the police department and setting up an appointment to pick up the firearms. In most cases, firearms and ammunition will not be returned at the same time.  

Firearms taken as evidence in a criminal matter, in most cases, cannot be returned without a court order.  

If you believe the police department may have a Found item that belongs to you, you can call the Property Division directly at 512-548-5530 or email at [email protected]. When contacting the Property Division, describe the item(s) you are looking for, in detail, and we will let you know if we have it. If we do, we will make arraignments to get it back to you.