Possibly 'hundreds' of rape kits never collected by NYPD: Report

Possibly "hundreds" of rape kits were never collected by the New York Police Department, sources recently revealed to the New York Post.

Law enforcement sources, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Post earlier this month that the department failed to retrieve an unknown number of rape kits from city hospitals.

"The total number of released rape kits citywide that should have been picked up by SVD [Special Victims Division] detectives may total several hundred," one NYPD source told the news outlet.

Victims who submit to a rape kit may choose to "release" the evidence to law enforcement or decide not to press charges.

The NYPD's Special Victims Division is tasked with picking up the released kits from the hospitals and delivering them to the department's lab in Queens for testing. The Medical Examiner's Office then conducts a forensic analysis to find any DNA matches in the criminal database system.

Until a full audit of all 60 hospitals is completed, it is unknown how many released rape kits were never retrieved by the department.

A law enacted last year requires that all rape kits not released to authorities be relocated to a warehouse, where they remain in storage for two decades in the event the victim decides to file criminal reports against the attacker. As a result of the new law, New York City hospitals began cataloguing all rape kits held in storage and alerted the NYPD about any uncollected released kits.

Law enforcement sources reported that up to 100 uncollected rape kits were found at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn and Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

Jane Manning, director of the Women's Equal Justice Project and a former prosecutor, told the Post that the evidence is "really important" for criminal investigations.

"Sometimes, that's how you connect cases and identify a serial rapist you didn't know was a serial rapist," Manning explained.

Ilse Knecht, director of policy and advocacy for the Joyful Heart Foundation, called it "a breakdown in the system."

"Every kit counts. Every kit really represents a survivor," Knecht stated.

As a result of the findings, the NYPD issued a new directive, assigning SVD detectives in each of the city's boroughs to contact all city hospitals regarding the uncollected rape kits.

"Moving forward, the NYPD Special Victims Division has put in place the following procedure to ensure any Sexual Offense Evidence Collection Kits (SOECKs) with permission to be released to law enforcement, are in fact, released in a timely manner," stated the department's October 5 directive obtained by the Post.

The NYPD refused to state how many released kits were left behind and partially blamed the issue on the state's failure to implement a "tracking system," the news outlet noted.

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