Heat’s on at Headquarters : Police Have It In for a Pack of Rats

San Diego police are searching for suspects matching the following description: “Eight inches long. Two pounds. Unshaven. Beady little eyes.”

And so far police have apprehended six rats that meet the description on a wanted poster in the field training office at police headquarters.

King-size rats have been on the wanted list ever since they began plaguing the department’s Market Street headquarters in June, nibbling away at confiscated marijuana and officers’ snacks.

Their appearance sparked an all-out campaign to snare the pesky vermin that scurry about both on the floor and in the building’s hollow ceiling. The officers who work in the field training office have been especially alert since the day a rat jumped out of the ceiling, dashed across the floor and out the door.

Vector control officers from the County Health Department were called in to eliminate the pesky rodents. They have planted poison and baited rat traps with peanut butter. Police officers say that may have taken care of the problem. Neither hide nor hair of a rat has been seen at headquarters in a week.

“All the rats are gone as far as I know,” said Jim Gamble, a narcotics storekeeper. “I’m very relieved. I didn’t enjoy working in a condition like that.”

The rodents (some say they were a foot long) are sometimes called roof rats because they often inhabit hollow ceilings, lofts and attics. “Those little suckers can go anywhere,” Gamble said.

In June, Gamble discovered that bags of marijuana keep in a storeroom for confiscated narcotics had been chewed open. Marijuana seeds and leaves were scattered around the scene of the crime.

Some officers quipped that the rats might have a drug habit. But police spokesman Bill Robinson said, “We never apprehended one and did a drug test.”

A rat also chewed off the cap of a bottle of pills in the storeroom and nibbled at some of the capsules. “I was afraid they’d get on LSD and attack me,” said Mary Lou Brown, who works in the narcotics section.

Four rats were caught in narcotics and two in the field training office. Officer Kaaren Reed said one poisoned rat died right next to her desk. Reed said marauding rats had singled out her desk in order to get into packets of snacks and vitamin tablets.

“They were fat and healthy,” she said. “They had nice soft fur.”

Sgt. Dennis Johnson added, “They were definitely bigger than the average rat.”