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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A metro man is searching for a way to move forward after he says Kansas City police officers dumped out all he had left of his grandmother.

“You should’ve asked before you did what you did,” Deonta Words said.

Words is asking questions after he said a KCPD officer poured his grandmother’s ashes in the dirt during an arrest.

FOX4 reached out to KCPD about the arrest on Sunday. On Monday afternoon, police said officers saw Words driving a reported stolen truck. Police say he was taken into custody after leading police on a short foot chase, where he was found with marijuana.

Words said he was walking to a friend’s near 39th and Topping when police took him into custody on a warrant. KCPD told FOX4 he had three warrants. He said he understands why he was arrested, but can’t wrap his head around a police officer dumping his grandmother’s cremains on the ground.

“I’m trying to figure out why was it dumped on the ground and scooped back up,” Words said.

Her ashes were kept close to his heart — in a necklace he wears every day. Words says what’s left of his grandmother is now mixed with grass and dirt.

“He never asked me what was in it or what was it. He just went ahead and dumped it on the ground. If you thought it was some type of drug or anything you should’ve put it on a drug testing thing,” Words said. “You didn’t do that. You just dumped it out on the ground next to my money.”

“I don’t got nothing to say to them, at all. Nothing at all. They didn’t apologize about it and I ain’t got nothing to say.”

He said the incident brings back the pain he felt about a year ago when she passed away.

“That was the last of what I had of her,” Words said. “This is my grandmother she raised me all my life.”

He said she was like a mother.

“I miss her. I think about her every day,” Words said. “That’s my heart, that’s my baby. I’m her baby. I can’t get her back. I can’t get her ashes back. I’m going to forever think about this.”

Words said it seemed like police didn’t know what was in his necklace, but wishes the officer would have asked because now he’s left with nothing. KCPD says if you’re being questioned or searched and have something of sentimental value on you, to say something to the officer.

During the search, which police said is department policy, officers found a necklace with a bullet attached to it.

KCPD said the officer unscrewed the bullet to examine the contents, and a portion of the ashes fell out accidentally. Officers said that’s when Words told them his grandmother’s ashes were inside.

The department said the officer apologized and tried to reclaim the remains from off the ground.

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