The Harris County District Attorney's Office recently alerted defense attorneys in more than 3,600 cases that the proceedings could be affected. The rats broke into storage and began consuming drugs that had been seized by Houston area police. So far only one case has been affected, with “400,000 pounds of marijuana in storage that the rats are the only ones enjoying,” according to Houston Mayor John Whitmire. The rats also enjoyed a package of mushrooms, according to Joshua Reiss, general counsel at the Harris County District Attorney's Office.
What could be disrupting hundreds of police cases in Houston?
Answer: Rats.
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In this day and age, you would expect a potential disruption of this scale to be caused by a computer glitch or processing error, but this one isn’t on the technology. Hundreds of cases could be disrupted in Houston due to an infestation of drug-eating rats.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office recently alerted defense attorneys in more than 3,600 cases that the proceedings could be affected. The rats broke into storage and began consuming drugs that had been seized by Houston area police. So far only one case has been affected, with “400,000 pounds of marijuana in storage that the rats are the only ones enjoying,” according to Houston Mayor John Whitmire. The rats also enjoyed a package of mushrooms, according to Joshua Reiss, general counsel at the Harris County District Attorney's Office.
This issue isn’t a new one, nor is it unique to Houston. Police officials all over the country have dealt with rats eating the evidence since the 1990s. The New Orleans Police Department dealt with a similar issue last year when rats got into the evidence room in the headquarters building. “The rats are eating our marijuana. They're all high,” police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said then.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office recently alerted defense attorneys in more than 3,600 cases that the proceedings could be affected. The rats broke into storage and began consuming drugs that had been seized by Houston area police. So far only one case has been affected, with “400,000 pounds of marijuana in storage that the rats are the only ones enjoying,” according to Houston Mayor John Whitmire. The rats also enjoyed a package of mushrooms, according to Joshua Reiss, general counsel at the Harris County District Attorney's Office.
