Woman finds evidence bag full of marijuana at neighborhood park

HOUSTON – It’s not the type of grass you expect to find at a park, but on Monday night, a Houston woman found a police evidence bag filled with marijuana on a park playground near a school on BritOak Lane.

Police said the bag was left at the park after it was used as a training aid. An internal affairs investigation has been initiated, according to police.

“It was right here on the floor,” the woman said as she pointed to the playground stairs.

She said she was walking her dog around 8:20 p.m. when she found a metal box with a name inscribed on it.

“I thought it belonged to a kid, so I didn’t think much of it,” she said.

She wanted to get it to its rightful owner, so she opened it. She found a bag full of marijuana inside.

"I was more concerned about the kids, because I didn't know, if I left it there, are kids going to get to it? I didn't know the contents of the bag,” she said. "I want to know what's going on. We all live here. It's a school. Why is there an evidence bag in the middle of the playground?"

The Houston Police Department said the 53 ounces of marijuana are from an open narcotics case from April 2016.

The marijuana was confiscated at a UPS facility because it had a fake address on it. The case is still open because police do not have a suspect.

The Police Department said it retrieved the bag from the woman around 10:23 p.m. and put it in the department's property room.

When the bag was initially found, the department said it was not clear where the marijuana came from. They didn’t know if it came from their property room or the crime lab, or how it ended up at the park.

The Houston Forensic Science Center is in charge of the crime lab.

A spokesperson for the center said the lab did an analysis on the marijuana, but needs more time to truly research its system to determine when the narcotics left the lab. Preliminarily results show the marijuana was returned to the Houston Police Department in 2016.

The Houston Forensic Science Center said on June 21 it received a large bundle of marijuana (about 50 lbs) from HPD.

HFSC said HPD asked for the lab to create a training aid for them.

On June 28, it left the lab and was sent back to HPD.

HFSC said it doesn't know what happened to it after and it was only in the lab for seven days.

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