The Houston Police Department (HPD) is dealing with an unusual problem: “drug-addicted rats” infesting its evidence room. The infestation has prompted the department to start destroying hundreds of thousands of pounds of unneeded narcotics evidence. According to Houston Mayor John Whitmire, the evidence room contains around 400,000 pounds of marijuana, which the rats have been consuming. The issue came to light in October when HPD noticed the rodents in the evidence room. The infestation has highlighted the problem of storing outdated evidence, some of which dates back to the 1940s.
Houston Police Chief Noè Diaz and Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare announced new protocols to address the issue. The district attorney’s office will now allow the destruction of drug evidence collected before 2015, a change from the previous rule that only permitted the destruction of evidence from before 2005. The district attorney’s office will also fund the costly process of evidence disposal.
Peter Stout, president of the Houston Forensic Science Center, noted that this is a common problem in evidence rooms nationwide. “Rodents, bugs, fungus, all kinds of things love drugs,” he explained.
A new position has been created in the district attorney’s office to facilitate the destruction of evidence, with a senior attorney acting as a liaison with law enforcement.
The changes aim to clear space for relevant evidence and prevent further infestations. However, the situation has raised concerns about the integrity of evidence in ongoing cases. Prosecutors have notified defense attorneys in 3,600 open cases involving drug evidence, although only one case has been compromised by rodents.
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