Deonta Words thought he would always have a pendant with the ashes of his grandmother who died in January 2018. He carries the pendant around his neck and hoped to give it to his kids one day.

But his hopes were dashed on May 30 when two police officers stopped him and poured the ashes out as they searched him. They eventually released him without charging him and have since verbally apologized for destroying the ashes, calling it an "accident." 

“This was the last thing of my grandmother. This is what protected me,” Words told The Kansas City Star.

“Wherever I go, she was with me physically.” 

But Words and his family want a formal apology from the Kansas City Police Department, something he said they have yet to receive despite their admission that officers poured the ashes out onto the concrete. They would like the apology from the department in writing. 

“He never asked me what was in it, what was it. He just went ahead and dumped it on the ground.” Words said in an interview with local outlet CBS 17.

“He just went ahead and dumped it on the ground. That was the last of what I had of her. This is my grandmother. She raised me all my life. I can’t get her back. I can’t get her ashes back. I’m going to forever think about this.”

The incident began when Words was walking to a friend's house on May 30. He saw a police car approach him and an officer flash a gun so he began running. Police stopped him and began searching him. They opened the pendant and spilled the ashes out onto the dirt.

When Words complained, the officer tried to scoop the ashes back into the pendant, but Words and his mother say it is mostly dirt now.

“We don’t have any ashes anymore. I’m trying to make good in it, but that’s dirt in there,” Words' 44-year-old mother Devona Douglas said, adding that the family is considering filing a formal complaint.

“Admit you’re wrong. Period.”

The police department admitted to pouring out the ashes but initially disputed Words' telling of events. They first claimed he was in a car when they stopped him and said they believed he was in a stolen vehicle.

But when pressed by news outlets for an official police report, they demurred, waiting weeks to finally release a formal statement of events. When they finally did release the report, the story lined up with Words' version of events.

Kansas City Police Department spokesman Sgt. Jake Becchina told The Kansas City Star that the incident “was an accident.”

“We recognize that many people carry sentimental ashes with them on their person in various containers," he said.

"Therefore, we ask that you inform police of the contents of any container of sentimental value prior to searching if you are under arrest. Unfortunately, this did not happen in this incident.”