XPost: talk.politics.guns, mn.politics, talk.politics.misc   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, sac.politics   
   From: timmy.walz@lies.alot   
      
   MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Medaria   
   Arradondo announced Friday that the city has discovered more than one thousand   
   sexual assault evidence kits that have never been tested.   
      
   They now say the city has more than 1,700 untested kits – roughly eight   
   times as many as previously disclosed.   
      
   In 2015, amid a national controversy about untested kits, Minnesota lawmakers   
   ordered the state BCA to conduct a survey of law enforcement agencies   
   statewide to determine the number of untested kits. At the time, the   
   Minneapolis Police Department    
   reported it had 194 kits that had not been tested.   
      
   On Friday, after police had summoned reporters to city hall, Frey shared that   
   an "unjustifiable mistake" that occurred before his administration recently   
   came to the attention of sex crimes investigators in the form of additional   
   untested kits, and the    
   department "acted immediately to right the wrong."   
      
   "Reporting sexual assault is an act of courage," Frey said. "We will move   
   heaven and earth to honor the courage in pursuit of justice," adding that the   
   past mistakes in handling rape kits were being revealed "with humility, and in   
   the name of    
   transparency."   
      
   Deputy Police Chief Erick Fors says the department discovered there were   
   hundreds of additional untested kits in July during an accounting process now   
   done in the sex crimes unit. Fors said it was quickly determined there was "a   
   significantly large    
   amount of untested kits in their inventory," some going back as far as 30   
   years.   
      
   "We believe all these kits should be tested," the assistant chief stated. "We   
   stand committed to ensuring that gets done ... we owe it to victims to do   
   this."   
      
   The new revelation of untested kits prompts some troubling questions: Among   
   them, how did these kits slip through the cracks, are those evidence kits   
   still forensically viable, and how will sex crimes investigators be able to   
   respond to a sudden influx    
   of 1,500 additional cases into their workload?   
      
   Deputy Chief Fors called the caseload inquiry "an interesting question," and   
   told reporters that investigators will be working with the Hennepin County   
   Attorney's Office to determine which cases have the "best potential" to be   
   solved and prosecuted.   
      
   Former department heads baffled   
      
   Two former heads of the MPD sex crimes unit said they did audits of untested   
   kits and 2013 and later in 2015, and found nowhere near 1,700.   
      
   Mike Martin, who took over the unit in 2013, said he counted about 200   
   untested kits in the city hall storage room.   
      
   "My understanding was that we found and tested every untested kit," he said.   
      
   Two years later Lt. Mike Sauro took over the department and did another audit,   
   discovering about 500 untested kits. But of those, many were from victims who   
   did not want their kits tested, others from those who stopped working with the   
   police, and others    
   were from unfounded cases, Sauro said. Once those were whittled away, there   
   about 194 untested kits.   
      
   Of the new count of 1,700, Sauro said, "somebody is misinterpreting the facts,   
   either intentionally or they don't know what they're looking at."   
      
   MPD says kits will be tested   
      
   Arradondo said he did not know why or how so many kits went uncounted in 2015.   
      
   He said the MPD now has "safeguards in place to make sure that the mistake   
   that occurred back in 2015 never occurs again."   
      
   Fors said that untested kits were first discovered following a review in July,   
   and quickly determined the 2015 count was wrong.   
      
   The department has since been working on a plan to test all of the kits and   
   contact the victims behind them, Fors said. But he said he did not know how   
   long the testing and contacting victims would take or how much it would cost.   
      
   Following the announcement, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman's office   
   said Minneapolis sexual assault victims who have questions about their kits or   
   the status of their case should call:   
      
      
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