{"id":40958,"date":"2026-10-09T15:25:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T19:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=40958"},"modified":"2026-10-09T15:25:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T19:25:40","slug":"another-decatur-service-falls-victim-to-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/09\/another-decatur-service-falls-victim-to-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Decatur service falls victim to abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another city service in Decatur has fallen victim to abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Police Chief Kevin Gerber said at Tuesday&#8217;s city council meeting that the unwanted medication disposal box at the police station on Seventh St. has been removed \u201cdue to repeated abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The box had been situated in front of the police department and was regularly used by people wanting a safe place to dispose of unwanted medications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a Facebook post, the chief cited safety concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"802\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Cops-drop-box.jpg?resize=640%2C802&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-40959\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Cops-drop-box.jpg?resize=817%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 817w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Cops-drop-box.jpg?resize=239%2C300&amp;ssl=1 239w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Cops-drop-box.jpg?resize=768%2C962&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Cops-drop-box.jpg?w=989&amp;ssl=1 989w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Unwanted medication box removed<br><br><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe latest issue,\u201d it said, \u201coccurred today when someone actually took the time to peel off all the identifying labels on the bottles, rather than just dump the pills into the perceptible like we ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey then proceeded to jam all the bottles into the pill cute, leaving them for any curious child who may not know better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFor the time being we will not be collecting any unwanted medications due to the box being removed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chief Gerber said CVS Pharmacy, 1221 W. Monroe Street, has an unwanted medication box that can be accessed during regular pharmacy hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few months ago, the city closed its Elm St. recycling site on weekends after repeated abuse there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Another city service in Decatur has fallen victim to abuse. Police Chief Kevin Gerber<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-40958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40960,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40958\/revisions\/40960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}