Brickbat: The Last Place You Look

Four years ago, Minneapolis police said they had 194 untested rape kits. They now say they have more than 1,700 untested rape kits, some dating back to the 1990s. Police Chief Medaria Arradondo says he does not know why so many rape kits have been left untested. But Mike Sauro, who used to run the sex crimes unit, defended the department, saying that many of the kits uncovered in the 2015 audit were "restricted," meaning the alleged victim was not cooperating with police. "We reviewed all the kits from the year 2000 all the way up to 2015," he said. "People have this misconception that all kits have to be and should be tested, and that's just not true. … If you don't have an official police report made, we can't enter them into the national database, so we can't test them."
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Okay, so... that's about 50 women a year that claimed rape, then changed their minds and refused to file a police report. In one city. Wow.
Not sure what the Brickbat is here though. Do you expect police to seek out rapists when the "victim" says "I'm not filing a police report"?
Is that the opposite of morning-after rape?
Or perhaps they just wanted it behind them and didn't want to go through the ordeal of interviews, interrogations, and maybe even a trial.
I'd like Reason to take a more thorough look at this. It sound like a complicated subject where the readers could benefit from a sympathetic and objective review of the topic.
Sympathetic and objective? That's a good lineup.
like pixie dust and unicorn farts?
So some women were uncooperative, but submitted to a rape kit?
Perhaps they were forced into it?
Well, they do call it a rape kit...
duct tape included?
It's their prerogative.
If you're admitted to an emergency room, the hospital staff do lots of things to you before you are able to consent. That could include taking the samples necessary for a rape kit. The "rape kit" contents can also be based on evidence at the scene other than on or within the victim's body. I can think of several other scenarios where a rape kit could be deployed but consent to process it withheld. These are not the normal use case but 50-100 per year in a major city? That sounds plausible.
No rape culture.
St Peter of Petri.
I do agree with you...
"Okay, so… that’s about 50 women a year that claimed rape, then changed their minds and refused to file a police report. In one city. Wow."
What scares me about the whole deal, then, is the fickle, arbitrary nature of whether a woman "feels like" she has been raped, or not. Men... Don't stick it in crazy!!!
What scares me about the whole deal, then, is the fickle, arbitrary nature of whether a woman “feels like” she has been raped, or not.
Pretty objectively, believing all women would leave you completely unaware of what to believe.
Some of them can seem perfectly rational up front.
sometimes it's hard to figure out what's crazy and what's merely delusional
The problem is they are all crazy!
The best you can do is stick in the one that you want (assuming she gives consent) and hope for the best!
that's assuming that they weren't raped, it could be a case where the woman doesn't want to go through the legal process, or where it's essentially her word vs. his that it was rape and not consensual. If the woman isn't gonna stand up for herself, the cops aren't gonna spend time and money on a case that won't go anywhere. Which makes sense from a logistics standpoint, buuuuut it also means that if there's a serial rapist, he could be slipping through the cracks due to no one realizing he exists.
"...or where it’s essentially her word vs. his that it was rape and not consensual."
You understand that we're talking about cases where a rape kit (i.e. objective, non-testimonial evidence) was taken, right?
Objective, non-testimonial evidence of sex is not evidence of rape.
I'd like to say this doesn't pass the smell test...but I won't.