“Drug rats” are eating narcotics seized and stored by Houston police, leading to a change in the length of time police are required to keep evidence, officials said.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire, Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare and Houston Police Chief J. Noe Diaz announced new measures Friday to remove drugs and other evidence stored at Houston’s headquarters. downtown police, some of which have remained there for decades, even attracting rodents. although the cases to which they are linked have long been adjudicated.
About 1.2 million pieces of evidence are stored in the downtown evidence room and at a second location, a real estate warehouse, including hundreds of thousands of pounds of drugs, officials said.
“We stored 400,000 pounds of marijuana,” Whitmire said. “The rats are the only ones who benefit from 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 drugs to be destroyed except in cases before 2005.
His office will use its funds to dispose of the drugs, Teare said.
A new position has been created in his office, filled by a senior attorney, who will work with law enforcement to help destroy evidence held in both locations upon the immediate conclusion of a case, Teare and the police spokesperson Jodi Silva.
Prosecutors this week sent notices to defense attorneys representing subjects in 3,600 open cases involving drug evidence, explaining that rats had eaten drugs held in the downtown evidence room, they said Wednesday. Rafael Lemaitre, spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office.
He said that of the open files, only one contains evidence deemed compromised by rodents.
When asked if the rodent problem in the downtown evidence room could jeopardize the convictions, Lemaitre declined to answer, saying he was not a lawyer.
Peter Stout, president and CEO of the Houston Forensic Science Center, said at the conference press briefing that evidence kept in storage rooms attracts rodents and creatures of all types. It’s a nationwide problemStout said.
“It’s a problem for properties all over the country: rodents, insects, fungus, all sorts of things love drugs,” he said. “It’s difficult to get these rodents out of there. I mean, think about it. They are drug addicted rats. They are difficult to manage.
To illustrate the problem, Diaz, the police chief, showed reporters on Friday cocaine seized in 1996.
He said of the suspect: “He pleaded to 20 years. He’s already out.
Diaz said seized evidence that “no longer has value in our legal system” must be destroyed. He also displayed marijuana from 1993 and said, “It just attracts rodents.” »
“It’s not something we can continue to do as a professional police department,” he said.
