L.I. Organization Offering Grants To Help With Backlog Of Rape Kits

[garbon]

My Tim comment: Despicable!

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/07/24/l-i-organization-offering-grants-to-help-with-backlog-of-rape-kits/

After finding out there are at least 400,000 rape kits sitting on shelves waiting to be tested, a Long Island organization plans to offer grants to help tackle the problem.

In 1993, Natasha Alexenko was the victim of a sexual assault.

She told WCBS 880 reporter Sophia Hall that her rape kit sat on a shelf for nearly ten years before being tested.

Last year, she began Natasha's Justice Project, which will soon be excepting applications for municipalities all over the country that need money to help reduce the backlog of lab work for rape kits.

"Throughout the nation, we were looking at 400,000 rape kits sitting on shelves nationwide and, of course, each kit represents a human being whose body was essentially a crime scene," Alexenko told Hall.

The West Sayville organization will offer $125,000 in grants.

Alexenko said the suspects in these cases must be caught so they will not rape again.

Alexenko has publicly identified herself as a rape victim. She appeared in an HBO documentary last year that detailed how her attacker was finally caught after a rape kit sat on an evidence shelf for a decade.

[CountDeMoney]

Considering how rape kits are not only evidence, but compelling fucking genetic evidence that can identify a known assailant--and, just as importantly, absolve a wrongly charged defendant--that is incredibly fucked up.

[garbon]

Yeah seriously, that backlog is ridiculous. I'm glad even if the government has failed us, private actors are willing to step in.

[garbon]

In related news...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/cold_case_cops_are_thinnest_blue_0jSeqCFBdoRQr996Xl0LAP

A new state law will help cops solve more cold cases — but the NYPD unit that investigates them has been shrunk almost to extinction, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

In March, the state became the first in the country to require DNA samples from almost every criminal convicted of a felony or misdemeanor.
But the number of detectives assigned to the NYPD Cold Case Squad — the specialists with the experience to turn a DNA match into a conviction — has dwindled to just eight.

That compares to 50 when the squad was founded in 1996. "The unit is stretched to the max,'' a source said.

"DNA proves you were there. It doesn't prove you committed a murder," another source said.

The city has had about 9,000 unsolved murders since 1985.

An FBI study found that to solve a homicide, an investigator should work no more than three cases at a time. City cold-case experts handle 50 to 100 cases at once.

Manhattan, Queens and The Bronx each have two cold-case detectives. Two others cover all of Brooklyn and Staten Island.