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US police apologise to victims after throwing away untested rape kits

The Fayetteville police force in North Carolina has admitted it threw away more than 300 rape kits.

WHEN VERONICA WAS raped more than 13 years ago, she says neither the police nor the hospital staff believed her story that a longtime friend attacked her while his mother was in the next room.

“I was treated like a female crying wolf,” said Veronica, who says the man raped her while she was unconscious. She believes he drugged her drink.

She was surprised, earlier this year, when she got a call from the initial investigating officer, John Somerindyke, who apologised for how she was treated and for something that Veronica didn’t yet know: Her rape kit was among 333 kits that Fayetteville police in North Carolina had thrown away.

Years after the kits were discarded, Fayetteville police began working with a crisis group to call the victims and tell them what happened.

The Joyful Heart Foundation, which works to end the backlogs, says Fayetteville police may stand alone in the effort to contact survivors about trashed rape kits.

“I don’t know of any others that have taken it on like Fayetteville has by apologising to survivors and to communities and trying to do what they can to fix it,” said Ilse Knecht, director of advocacy and policy for the foundation, founded by actress Mariska Hargitay.

Backlogs of untested rape kits have surfaced as a problem at police departments around the country. The foundation knows of at least 200,000 untested rape kits nationwide, Knecht said.

The kits, about the size of a shoe box, had been collected in Fayetteville between 1995 and 2008. Police began throwing them away in 1999 to make space in the evidence room. Somerindyke, now a lieutenant, discovered the kits were missing in February 2015 when he reviewed unsolved rape cases.

Unsolved cases

Of the 333 destroyed kits, 52 belonged to women whose cases had resulted in arrests, leaving 281 survivors with unsolved cases and no rape kits as evidence. Instead of simply moving on and vowing to do better in the future, the Fayetteville Police Department announced what happened and then called victims individually, including those cases in which arrests had been made.

“We felt it was the right thing to come forward,” Somerindyke said. “We felt like they had the right to know what had happened to their kit.”

The department enlisted the help of Rape Crisis Volunteers of Cumberland County, which got grant money and hired a victim’s advocate to make the calls.

The advocate, Danielle Sgro, said victims’ responses ran the gamut. Some were angry or sad their kits were destroyed and said the calls stirred up memories they’d pushed aside. But others were grateful that someone cared enough to call.

‘Humiliating’

Veronica, who agreed to let the AP use her first name, but not her last, said she’s among the grateful ones.

“There was an apology for things not being handled how they should have been,” said Veronica, 34, who joined the Air Force after her attack and moved around the country before settling in Fayetteville again. “He (Somerindyke) was interested in rectifying that as much as possible in the now. That’s beyond appreciated.”

In 90 percent of the cases involving the destroyed rape kits, someone was reached or the victim was no longer living, Somerindyke said.

Gathering evidence for a rape kit “is a humiliating, long, traumatic experience,” said Deanne Gerdes, executive director of Rape Crisis Volunteers. But she finds the response of the Fayetteville Police Department heartening.

“It happened. The kits were thrown away,” she said. “But the Fayetteville Police Department is now doing something about it. … If you reached out to any other jurisdiction, if they were honest, they would say yes, we have kits sitting on the shelf or yes, we threw kits away.”

Somerindyke said, “We could have and should have done better.”

Since 2009, it’s been illegal in North Carolina to destroy a rape kit. And law enforcement agencies must report the number of untested rape kits in their possession to the State Crime Laboratory.

‘Violated’

Veronica had been friends with her attacker for years when she went with him in June 2004 to the home he shared with his mother and drank part of an alcoholic beverage that she’s certain was laced with something that knocked her out. She woke up on his bed “and I knew I had been violated,” she said.

She escaped the house, and friends took her to a hospital. Veronica recalls that during the original investigation, Somerindyke seemed like he was just going through the motions. But when he called to tell her about the destroyed rape kit, “I didn’t know it was the same guy at all,” Veronica said. “He had a very genuine heartfelt interest in righting wrongs.”

Police reopened Veronica’s case, but without the rape kit, the district attorney declined to prosecute, Somerindyke said. However, the man whom she identified as her rapist is now behind bars on a murder charge. She plans to attend his trial and hopes to see her attacker sentenced to many years behind bars.

But the rest of the saga that began more than 13 years ago is behind her. “I don’t feel like a victim or a survivor,” she said. “I feel like a warrior.”

Read: The disappearance of Amy Fitzpatrick: 10 years on and still no closer to finding out what happened>

Read: Behind the messaging app that was temporarily blocked for inspiring protesters in Iran>

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    Mute Adrian
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    Sep 27th 2016, 1:57 PM

    You meant leaders dodging questions, didn’t you!

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    Mute Al Ca
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    Sep 27th 2016, 2:02 PM

    @Adrian: ‘Leaders mumbles’.

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    Mute Unitedpeople
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    Sep 27th 2016, 2:09 PM

    Topics that political parties will avoid…

    1. The still existence itself, of Irish Water.
    2. The still bullied use of meters upon people, the use of them to monitor and charge later.
    3. The undemocratic TTIP Treaty being rammed in!
    4. The needed constitution change needed to protect more, our natural resources from a privatisation agenda.
    5. The rip-off “Service Charges ” being added to rip-off hiked bin charges – suspended only in hope of killing off public anger!
    6. The EU Army Ireland was signed quietly to, without a public vote, increasing the state’s militarisation costs and putting it into a weapon arms race more, that is also destroying what’s left of any Irish neutrality!

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    Mute Bernard Cantillon
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    Sep 27th 2016, 3:09 PM

    On a scale of 0-10, where 0 is not paranoid at all and 10 is extremely paranoid, how paranoid are you?

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    Mute Vincent Wallace
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    Sep 27th 2016, 4:50 PM

    Says the Labour light man. How is Labours way going for you? Felt an awful lot like frankfurts way to me.

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    Mute Adrian
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    Sep 27th 2016, 2:05 PM

    I’m amazed they’re finding the time for the dail between their summer holidays and their Christmas holidays. Do they have a mid term break around halloween?

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    Mute Alex Murray
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    Sep 27th 2016, 3:40 PM

    @Adrian most of them are failed teachers so they expect the same holidays

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    Mute Chris
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    Sep 27th 2016, 3:23 PM

    I was walking by the side of the Ambassador cinema on Saturday and heard an almighty screech – it was her waffling to a load of young, gullible libtards about wombs and incubators.

    Nauseating stuff.

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    Mute Rob Cahill
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    Sep 27th 2016, 3:29 PM

    @Chris: Gullible.. lol

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    Mute dee jayy
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    Sep 27th 2016, 2:11 PM

    Do they get homework on their first day back?

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    Mute Etherman
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    Sep 27th 2016, 2:00 PM

    Just in time to plan Christmas parties and skiing holidays. Nice.

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    Mute Paul Mc
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    Sep 27th 2016, 2:29 PM

    Will the government actually do anything positive this term or at best even answer some questions in the Dail.

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    Mute Tom Kelly
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    Sep 27th 2016, 3:22 PM

    When I look at AAA TDs I feel sick. Parasites

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    Mute For Connolly
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    Sep 27th 2016, 2:13 PM

    Meehole on his feet right now talking like he’s not the person more than anyone else in thsi state who’s propping up this sham.

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    Mute Paul
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    Sep 27th 2016, 2:18 PM

    Rather him prop it up than run it……wait you will tell me SF will win a majority if an election was called!

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    Mute Shakka1244
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    Sep 27th 2016, 4:20 PM

    “We need a real discussion in the Oireachtas” said Kenny

    So, when there is something that FG doesn’t want to do we need a discussion (i.e. kick the can down the road), but when it’s something FG does want to do, they just ram it through with no debate.

    What a sham our “democracy” is.

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    Mute FastBuck
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    Sep 27th 2016, 2:23 PM

    I want to know if enda is gonna releashe another inshpiratonal video for mayo for the weekend!

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    Mute Neuville-Kepler62F
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    Sep 28th 2016, 11:28 AM

    These TDs in the Dail (AND Civil Service) need to grasp a few basic principles of Taxation:-
    - Tax must be by consent
    - Tax must be progressive … more you can afford more you pay .. PAYE is a good example
    - Tax must not be proportional (A Smith 1794!) .. flat tax is not fair tax.
    - Tax must not be regressive … poor should not pay more than the rich .. as is the case in Irish Car Tax system, VAT for first time home buyers …
    - Tax must be based on ability to pay … not so for LPT, Water Tax … Car Tax … VAT on family homes …

    Unless TDs grasp this then political and social instability will continue …

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    Mute Alois Irlmaier
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    Sep 28th 2016, 3:21 AM

    It is like they never left lol.

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