Metro Police receive grants to clear backlog of rape kits

By Megan Messerly

Published Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015 | 9:40 a.m.

Updated Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015 | 12:30 p.m.

Las Vegas’s crime lab will begin testing all of its more than 6,300 backlogged rape kits in Southern Nevada after it received $5 million today in funding from two national grants and the Nevada attorney general’s office.

Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. announced that Metro police will receive two separate grants to test 5,643 rape kits from Metro and 739 from eight other local agencies. Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt also pledged an additional $1.7 million today from a Bureau of Consumer Protection settlement finalized last month to test the kits.

“What we are doing today is going to make a gigantic dent,” said Biden in New York City, adding that the jurisdictions chosen to receive the funds were those with the highest backlogs of rape kits.

Las Vegas’s forensic lab applied for the two grants earlier this year after realizing that it didn’t have the funds or the capacity to test its backlog on its own. Currently, the lab tests about 100 rape kits in-house per year. With the new funding, the lab will be able to send all of its backlogged rape kits to outside crime labs for testing, beginning in November.

Laxalt thanked Metro police department, the Clark County District Attorney’s Office, victim advocates and others for their support in ending the state’s rape kit backlog.

“It’s incredibly important that we march on,” Laxalt said. “We will fight for this. This is something we need to press for for our victims and for our community.”

Metro police will receive $2 million from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and $1 million from the U.S. Department of Justice exclusively to pay to test rape kits. Another $400,000 from the Justice Department will go toward additional support services, like overtime for investigators and victim advocates.

Exams typically cost about $1,500 to send to an outside crime lab, but the forensic lab has secured a discounted rate of $625 per kit if they send them in bulk.

Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said Metro police planned to clear Southern Nevada’s backlog in the next three years. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson pledged the support of his office, including 10 special victims unit lawyers, in prosecuting any cases that come to light as a result of new evidence.

“We hope the existence of DNA evidence in a number of kits will allow us to investigate serial predators,” Wolfson said.

Southern Nevada’s backlog dates to 1985, when DNA testing was in its infancy. Police failed to recognize the value of DNA evidence, officials have said, and technology was limited. Additionally, police didn’t always request that kits be tested, including in cases of acquaintance rape.

But now, as cities across the nation have begun testing their backlogs, officials have seen the value of testing every rape kit in helping locate serial offenders and linking previously unrelated cases together.

Assemblywoman Teresa Benitez-Thompson, D-Reno, said securing funding was an “important first step,” but that more needed to be done to fix the “systemic neglect” victims have faced with untested rape kits. She said she planned to fix “inconsistencies” in how rape kits have been handled by police by pushing in the next legislative session for a uniform database system to track rape kits and to set a consistent statewide standard for when police should request to have kits tested.

Benitez-Thompson also said that there were at least 924 unprocessed kits in Northern Nevada.

Daniele Dreitzer, executive director of the Rape Crisis Center Las Vegas, said the funding offered a “second chance” for victims and “a huge step forward.”

But she also said that, as these kits are tested, victims may find themselves facing even more questions and pledged the support of her organization in offering advocacy services.

“I was so thrilled when I got the call,” Dreitzer said. “Three years is a long time, but we’re looking forward to having all of those dollars so we can move forward.”

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office awarded $38 million in grants to 32 jurisdictions across 20 states and the U.S. Department of Justice awarded $41 million to 20 jurisdictions. Between the two grants almost 70,000 kits will be tested across the nation. Metro was one of just seven jurisdictions across the nation to receive both grants.