These rats have friends in high places.
Reefer-loving rodents are chowing down on a carefully kept stash of marijuana in the New Orleans Police Department’s dilapidated evidence room, authorities said Monday.
“Rats are eating our marijuana,” Superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick told the City Council’s Criminal Justice Committee. According to NOLA.com.
“Everyone is expensive.”
Kirkpatrick’s alarming report came as he implored city councilors to fund a new home for the Big Easy’s police force.
She claims the current police headquarters, built in 1968, is unfit for a modern force, with elevators out of order, no air conditioning and officers dealing with rats and cockroaches strewn across their desks. He described how he was forced to work around feces.
Stoned rats are of particular concern because their marijuana addiction could jeopardize criminal cases, she noted.
“The filth is insane,” Kirkpatrick told city officials Monday.
“Cleaning staff cleaning” [team] You deserve an award for trying to clean something that’s dirty. ”
Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city in 2005, apparently caused problems at police headquarters.
“The basement was full. [of flooding water]” an unidentified veteran told NOLA.com.
“We get a lot of rodents that come through the walls. There are some things that people can’t get close to, so there’s always some type of rodent, whether it’s bugs, rats, rats,” the officer explained.
Kirkpatrick argued that the epidemic is currently “blocking off” the possibility of out-of-state travel and is hampering police morale.
“It’s not OK, and it’s not OK for people to be treated that way and called ‘valued,'” she said.
Councilman Oliver Thomas, who chairs the Criminal Justice Committee, seems to agree.
He said he was “surprised” by the news of rats eating marijuana.
“Everything is a surprise,” he told NOLA.com.
“We were surprised when we heard about the headquarters relocation on the news. It’s no surprise that we were surprised.”
Thomas and other City Council members finally moved Monday to approve the police department’s 10-year lease on two floors of a downtown office building, pending a vote by the full council.
Under the terms of the lease, the city will pay base rents totaling $7.6 million over 10 years from the general fund.
But Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montaño said it would cost three times as much to fix all the problems facing the current headquarters, including getting rid of the stoner rats.
According to WWLTV, law enforcement officials currently hope to move into the high-rise building by May 1st.
