The Department of Justice is investigating the New York City Police Department's Special Victims Unit for allegedly failing to collect a “large number” of rape kits, officials said recently. new york post.
Officials revealed this in December. post Blaze News previously reported that the department reportedly abandoned possibly “hundreds” of rape kits at the city's hospitals.
If a victim chooses to “release” a rape kit to law enforcement as evidence, NYPD SVD detectives are responsible for picking up the kit from the hospital and delivering it to the department's laboratory in Queens for testing. .
Because of a law enacted last year, the city's hospitals have begun cataloging all rape kits in storage and alerting law enforcement to unrecovered release kits. After the NYPD was informed of the evidence abandonment, the department directed SVP to regularly contact the city's 60 hospitals to ensure kits were collected in a “timely” manner.
It is still unclear how many kits were left in hospital storage and not recovered by the department.
Law enforcement officials recently told the Post that the Justice Department is “investigating.”
“The hospital called us and asked us what we wanted to do,” the source added. “We don't have the numbers.”
“It's the forensic evidence left behind. That's what really matters,” the source continued.
The Department of Justice originally reported that in June 2022, the NYPDGender-biased police enforcement.”
“There have been numerous complaints about understaffing, non-handpicked selection of detectives, nepotism, etc., and collection of rape kits has now become an issue in several cases,” the source said in the post. told the paper.
Another official told the news outlet that a “full transparent investigation” would need to be conducted to determine the total number of kits abandoned by the agency.
“If the NYPD has done nothing wrong, a thorough investigation will reveal it. City government cannot allow this to continue,” a second source said. .
An NYPD spokesperson told the Post that the state needs to have a tracking system in place.
“Currently, there is no statewide tracking system in place for sex crime evidence collection kits, leaving the possibility that kits may be left in hospital storage and not tested in a timely manner,” the spokesperson said. The ministry added that it would take further action. “We will continue to work closely with[the Department of Justice regarding any additional information requested].”
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