“Drug rats” are eating narcotics seized and stored by Houston police, prompting a change in how long the department must store evidence, authorities said.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare and Houston Police Chief J. Noe Diaz announced new steps Friday to dispose of drugs and other evidence stored at headquarters. of police downtown, some of which have been there for decades, attracting rodents. even though the cases they are linked to have been tried for a long time.
About 1.2 million pieces of evidence are kept in the center’s evidence room and at a second location, a property warehouse, including hundreds of thousands of pounds of drugs, authorities said.
“We have 400,000 pounds of marijuana in storage,” Whitmire said. “Rats are the only ones who enjoy it.”
Teare said Friday that drug evidence collected before 2015 that is no longer needed for the cases will be destroyed. An old rule did not allow the destruction of drugs unless the case was before 2005.
His office will use its funds to get rid of the drugs, Teare said.
A new position has been created in his office, filled by a senior attorney, who will work with authorities to help destroy evidence stored at the two locations once the case is immediately completed, Teare and the police spokeswoman said. Houston, Jodi Silva.
Prosecutors sent notices this week to defense attorneys representing 3,600 open cases involving drug testing, explaining that rats have been eating drugs kept in the center’s evidence room, Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, said Wednesday. district.
He said that of the open cases, only one has evidence that is considered compromised by rodents.
When asked if the rodent problem in the center’s evidence room could jeopardize convictions, Lemaitre declined to answer, explaining that he is not a lawyer.
Peter Stout, president and CEO of the Houston Forensic Science Center, said at the news conference that evidence kept in storage rooms attracts rodents and vermin of all kinds. It’s a problem seen across the country, Stout said.
“This is a problem in property rooms all over the country, rodents, insects, fungi, all kinds of things, I love drugs,” he said. “It is difficult to get these rodents out of there. I mean, think about it. They are drug addict rats. “It’s hard to deal with them.”
To illustrate the problem, Díaz, the police chief, showed reporters Friday the cocaine seized in 1996.
He said of the suspect: “He pleaded guilty to 20 years. “It’s already out.”
Díaz said that seized evidence that “has no further value within our legal system” should be destroyed. He also showed off the 1993 marijuana and said, “It just attracts rodents.”
“It’s not something we can continue to do as a professional law enforcement agency,” he said.
