Rats get high after eating evidence at ‘rotting’ police station

The local police chief hit out at the state of the station

Rats have become high after eating evidence at a police station in America that is ‘taken over my cockroaches and mould’.

The vermin found their way into the confiscated pot at New Orleans’ aging police headquaters, munching the evidence, said the city’s head police chief.

“The rats eating our marijuana, they’re all high,” Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told New Orleans City Council members.

Kirkpatrick described infestations and decay at the offices that have housed New Orleans police since 1968, saying officers have even found rat droppings on their desks.

She said the building is taken over by mold and cockroaches.

The police department did not immediately respond to a request for more information on how they discovered marijuana was eaten by rats or whether any cases were impacted.

City officials are taking steps to move the department to a new space. It has been a priority of the police chief since she took office in October.

The chief said her 910 officers come to work to find air-conditioning and elevators broken. She told council members the conditions are demoralizing to staff and a turnoff to potential recruits coming for interviews.

“The uncleanliness is off the charts,” Kirkpatrick said, adding that it’s no fault of the department’s janitorial staff. “

They deserve an award for trying to clean what is uncleanable.”

The city council is weighing a proposal to spend $7.6 million on a 10-year lease to temporarily relocate the police headquarters to a pair of floors in a high-rise building downtown.

The council’s Criminal Justice Committee agreed on Monday to advance the leasing proposal to the full City Council for a vote, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.

Kirkpatrick says the rental agreement would give the department time to come up with plans for a new permanent headquarters.

Gilbert Montano, the City’s Chief Administrative Officer, said it is a 10-year lease that will cost over $670,000 a year in rent.

‘I think it’s going to be somewhere between two to $300,000 to actually physically move them,’ Montano said.

He added that there would be also money spent on ‘working desks, chairs, networking, and items that would typically go into a move.’