“Only one instance, we have got 400,000 kilos of marijuana in storage that the rats are the one ones having fun with,” Mayor John Whitmire stated.
HOUSTON — Houston-area leaders are coming collectively Friday to announce a brand new effort to filter out what they’re calling pointless objects from the Houston Police Division’s property room.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire was joined by Police Chief J. Noe Diaz, Harris County District Lawyer Sean Teare, and Houston Forensic Science Middle CEO and President Peter Stout to announce the hassle.
At Friday’s announcement, Whitmire stated Teare would assist decide what proof is not wanted to safe convictions and that it’s simply taking on area.
“Only one instance, we have got 400,000 kilos of marijuana in storage that the rats are the one ones having fun with,” Whitmire stated.
Diaz stated the difficulty of the property room has been “kicked down the highway” for too lengthy.
“We’ve over 1.2 million items of proof right here on the Houston Police Division. We’ve notes from a 1947 murder that we nonetheless maintain,” Diaz stated. “We’ve cases the place we now have kilos of cocaine from the 90s the place folks have already been despatched to jail, have already been launched from the sentence, and we nonetheless retailer it.”
Diaz went on to say that the price of the storage is great however didn’t give a quantity.
Teare stated he had plenty of the identical visions because the mayor on prison justice.
“We’re right here to speak about fixing a difficulty,” the district legal professional stated. “I knew that we had a difficulty in not simply this property room, however property rooms round our group since I began as a prosecutor and actually as an intern in 2005.”
Teare stated he is grateful the difficulty has come to a head and compelled officers to take motion.
“We will begin to repair a systemic drawback that has hit each considered one of our property rooms, which is, we do not destroy proof when it not makes any sense to maintain it,” Teare stated. “As of proper now, we is not going to enable the police division to destroy narcotics proof if it has been in its possession any time since 2005.”
Teare stated that coverage is altering.
“In order of proper now, we’re beginning to transfer that up and we will probably be destroying any narcotics proof that has been obtained previous to 2015,” he stated. “By midday at present, we may have a listing, chief, for each single a type of circumstances and we may have property destruction orders able to go on these.”
The DA stated it prices some huge cash to destroy narcotics proof and his workplace is devoted to financially supporting it.
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