Rape Victims Decry Backlog of DNA Tests and Demand Timely Analysis

Rape survivors rallying at the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters Tuesday called on law enforcement agencies to devote more money to analyzing biological material for DNA and decried the increasing backlog of untested rape kits in police evidence rooms.

“My rape kit sat on the shelf gathering dust for four years” before it was tested, said Karen Pomer, whose rapist was caught after he assaulted other women in the mid-1990s.

About 35 protesters organized by the Rainbow Sisters Project gathered in front of Parker Center downtown to march to the federal building a block away and then to the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration on Temple Street.

With scientific advances and computer databases of thousands of DNA profiles, biological evidence has become a powerful tool to help law enforcement catch sexual offenders and to exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners.

But because of a shortage in resources, criminalists for the LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department have given priority for years to analyzing biological evidence in cases in which suspects have been identified and are headed for trial. A huge backlog of DNA requests from investigators has been accumulating.

Critics say this evidence should be analyzed as quickly as possible so that it can be compared with DNA profiles in the database of inmates who have been convicted of sexual offenses and other crimes.

For the last year, debate has swirled around the amount of space that will be devoted to DNA analysis in the county’s planned $96-million crime lab, which is scheduled to be completed in 2005. Critics have charged that the LAPD is not devoting enough space or criminalists to DNA testing.

The Los Angeles Police Commission announced two weeks ago that it will review plans for the lab. Interim Police Chief Martin Pomeroy said the department’s plans are adequate for the number of criminalists that the City Council will fund.

The controversy heated up last month when the LAPD disclosed that its detectives had mistakenly authorized the destruction of biological evidence in about 1,000 cases.

The police and the Sheriff’s Department have called a moratorium on destruction of DNA evidence.

Protesters carried signs Tuesday denouncing the Police Department for the destruction of the rape kits and urging the department to preserve DNA evidence forever.

Debbie Smith, a Williamsburg, Va., rape victim who has been lobbying Congress for increased funding for DNA testing, said hundreds of thousands of rape kits across the country have gone untested. “They’re sitting on shelves behind closed doors, backlogged.”

“If not for DNA, my rapist would still be out there,” she said. “It took 6 1/2 years to find him because the DNA was untested and sat on a shelf.”

Pomer, a founder of Rainbow Sisters, which lobbies for legislation and educates the public on behalf of rape survivors, said DNA evidence should never be destroyed.

She also urged the department to increase the DNA crime lab staff to 40 criminalists, from its current plans for 25.

In an interview, Pomer said the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors should insist that the Sheriff’s Department determine whether any biological evidence in its custody has been destroyed and require the agency to provide the board with a full accounting.

Sheriff’s officials have said its moratorium on destruction of DNA evidence has been in effect since November 1991. They have also said they are examining the files in a sampling of sex offense cases to determine whether rape kits have been mistakenly destroyed. Police officials have said they recognize the power of DNA, and are reviewing departmental practices in deciding when to dispose of biological evidence.