Police in Houston, Texas, have a big problem with rats consuming drugs confiscated and stored in warehouses. Even pest exterminators cannot cope with the plague. So far, rodents have influenced the course of at least one current case.
In total, the city of Houston stores 1.2 million pieces of physical evidence, including approximately 181,000 kilograms of marijuana favored by rodents. The Harris County District Attorney's Office, where Houston is located, was notified of the rodent problem in mid-January, CBS News reported.
Mayor John Whitmire announced at a press conference a plan to clean up the situation, which means getting rid of drugs that have been stored for more than a decade. “We are still holding unnecessary evidence that will no longer impact any verdicts,” Whitmire said.
The Houston Police Department has permission from the district attorney's office to destroy drug evidence related to cases completed before 2015.
“They're hard to deal with”
The head of the city's Forensic Science Center, Peter Stout, said that rats also destroy other evidence while looking for drugs. The police called rodent control specialists, but they were unable to get rid of the rodents. “They're drug-addicted rats,” Stout commented.
Police believe rats influenced at least one ongoing case when they managed to get into a bag containing hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Not just in Houston
It's not just Houston that has this problem. As Joshua Reiss of the Harris County District Attorney's Office said, it's a nationwide problem that's been going on since the 1990s.
Last March, the New Orleans police also complained about the destruction of evidence. “The rats are eating our marijuana, they're all high,” said Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick during a meeting of the city's justice committee.
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