Illicit narcotics seem to turn up everywhere. Inside foreclosed homes, in speaker boxes, inside packages of baby clothes. They’ve even shown up here in Bremerton inside ATM machines.
Logically, given their nature as outlawed substances, they’re often hidden creatively. But sometimes, the people hiding them might not even remember where they stowed them away.
Or, in a recent Bremerton case, their user may not have had a chance to take his stash with him.
Police were called to a local pawn shop April 8 after an employee found a baggie of white stuff inside a tool box. Officer confirmed it was meth, and began to try and find out who it belonged to. Their investigation took them to a man, who claimed it belonged to another man, who … well, it could have gone on endlessly. Law enforcement’s best guess was that it was the property of a renter who was jailed, and couldn’t take his stash with him.
Carlos Rodriguez, sergeant in charge of the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team, said he’s seen drugs — as well as ill-gotten cash and weapons — in just about every nook and cranny you can think of.
When they’re executing a search warrant at a property, they expect the unexpected.
Rodriguez has found drugs in freezers, in the heads of flashlights, even in body cavities on the suspects themselves. He’s also found guns in walls, and cash at the bottom of suspects’ garbage in wads of toilet paper.
“It could be anywhere,” he said of a suspect’s drugs.
