Pine Bluff Police Lt. Bob Rawlinson has appealed a suspension he was given that resulted from an internal investigation into the handling of evidence in the Cleashindra Hall case.
Pine Bluff City Attorney Althea Hadden-Scott confirmed that Rawlinson has filed an appeal and a hearing before a civilian review panel will be held no later than Aug. 9.
The review panel replaced the Civil Service Commission which was abolished last year.
Police Capt. Greg Shapiro declined to discuss the suspension or the reasons for it because of the pending appeal.
Rawlinson was the department’s Public Information Officer and one of the lead detectives in the case. He led the search for evidence at 5309 Faucett Road, the home of Larry Amos and the last place Hall was seen before she disappeared May 9, 1994.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Davis-Jones reassigned Rawlinson on April 8. He is now one of two patrol division supervisors on the department’s night shift.
The internal investigation resulted from the discovery that the evidence collected during that search sat at the police department for more than a month before it was sent to the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory at Little Rock.
The search was conducted on March 29 and the evidence sent to the crime lab May 8.
Police have not been specific about the nature of the evidence collected and in June. Police Chief Brenda Davis-Jones told the Public Safety Committee of the Pine Bluff City Council that the evidence had tested negatively for blood and was being sent to another section of the lab for DNA analysis.
There have been no further reports on that testing from Davis-Jones or other police officials.
Last month, Crime Scene Technician Cathy Ruhl was suspended for five days by Davis-Jones for improperly handing the evidence collected.
“The evidence was not compromised,” Shapiro said at that time. “There was just a delay in getting it to the crime lab.”
Friday, Laurell Hall, mother of the missing woman, said she still needed to be kept informed by the police department.
Also, Laurell Hall said she was still hoping that someone would come forward with information about her daughter’s disappearance.
“I had hoped when the search got enlarged and the media got involved, someone would come forward but they still have not,” she said. “When she left, she had no car to leave in, no identification, no money and she didn’t leave a note to say she was leaving.
“Somebody, and there could be more than one, knows what happened and why they won’t come forward, I don’t know,” Laurell Hall said. “We’re still praying that someone will come forward and tell what they know.”