Seattle police to do DNA testing on all rape kits

Seattle police will begin DNA testing on all sexual-assault evidence kits, including 1,276 collected over the past 10 years that were shelved and never tested, the department announced Thursday.

Police said the change in policy came after new police Chief Kathleen OToole and the new supervisor of the departments Special Victims Unit, Capt. Deanna Nollette, had discussions with the King County Prosecutors Office, Harborview Medical Center and victim-advocacy groups.

We will test all sexual-assault kits moving forward and begin addressing untested kits, Nollette said. Its a great enhancement in our response to victims and our investigative abilities.

Nollette said the departments previous protocols which took into account whether there was a cooperative victim and whether consensual sexual contact was contested made sense at the time they were created. However, those protocols are no longer considered to be among the best practices.

We took a new look at it and saw there was room for improvement, Nollette said.

The change comes as the issue of untested, stored so-called rape kits is being discussed nationwide.

Last year, Congress officially recognized the backlog of untested rape kits as a national problem in passing the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Reporting Act, or SAFER, which seeks to provide data on the number of unsolved rape cases awaiting testing and establish better standards for the tracking, storage and use of DNA evidence in sexual-assault cases.

The federal government is also providing funding to help cover the costs for testing the kits, which usually contain swabs, evidence envelopes and information sheets detailing the examination.

In November, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. pledged as much as $35 million to help eliminate the backlog of rape kits that has long troubled authorities, victims and lawmakers.

Sexual-assault victims generally undergo a forensic examination in which potential evidence such as blood, saliva or semen is collected and preserved in what is commonly called a rape kit.

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Seattle police to do DNA testing on all rape kits