SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (Edited News Release) — The first untested sexual assault kits inventoried through the SAFE Kits Initiative were collected by the Springfield Police Department from neighboring law enforcement agencies.
The kits will be sent to private labs to be tested.
“When I was sworn in as Attorney General, tackling this backlog of untested sexual assault kits was one of my top priorities, and remains a key focus of this office heading into the new year,” said Attorney General Schmitt. “Thanks to Judge Williams and her team’s hard work, our exhaustive inventory identified the number of untested sexual assault kits in the state of Missouri, an important step in tackling this issue. Now, with the help of Chief Williams, the Springfield Police Department, and our incredible law enforcement partners across the state, we’re taking a crucial step forward in our fight to bring justice for victims.”
“Springfield Police Department has been involved in this effort from the beginning. We are pleased to partner with the Attorney General to be able to send backlogged sexual assault kits from throughout Southwest Missouri to a lab for testing,” said Springfield Police Department Chief Williams.
To preserve the chain of custody and since the Attorney General’s Office cannot handle the kits themselves, representatives from remote departments such as Branson, Hollister, Monett, Nixa and Republic, as well as Sheriff’s departments from a variety of counties, will physically bring over 100 untested sexual assault kits identified in the inventory to the Springfield Police Department, who will then ship those collected kits off to a private lab to be tested.
In all, untested sexual assault kits that were inventoried by the SAFE Kit initiative will be gathered from 12 neighboring Sheriff’s departments and 20 neighboring police departments.
Major metropolitan departments like the Springfield Police Department will serve as host agencies as they have more capacity and inventory space than smaller departments, making them a prime department to gather these untested sexual assault kits from local departments to then send out to the lab.
Moving forward, the same process will be used in other areas: a larger department will serve as a host agency to gather kits from smaller, neighboring departments and Sheriff’s offices to then send out to the lab to be tested.
The SAFE Kits Initiative is using a private lab to ensure that kits are tested expeditiously and to not overwhelm the Missouri State Highway Patrol crime lab with a large influx of kits.
The SAFE Kits Initiative, funded by a grant administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, was launched by Attorney General Schmitt in January of 2019 to inventory all untested sexual assault kits identified in a previous audit, create an electronic tracking system, and send those identified kits to a lab for forensic testing and potentially eventual prosecution.
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