Chesa Boudin, the San Francisco District Attorney is thoroughly umamused by officers at the SFPD who have been entering the DNA of rape victims into the criminal database, and are using this to connect them to crimes.
Protect and serve, my ass:
The San Francisco Police Department's crime lab has been checking DNA collected from sexual assault victims to determine whether any of the victims committed a crime, according to District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who called for an immediate end to the alleged practice.
"The crime lab attempts to identify crime suspects by searching a database of DNA evidence that contains DNA collected from rape and sexual assault victims," Boudin's office said in a press release yesterday. Boudin's release denounced the alleged "practice of using rape and sexual assault victims' DNA to attempt to subsequently incriminate them."
"Boudin said his office was made aware of the purported practice last week, after a woman's DNA collected years ago as part of a rape exam was used to link her to a recent property crime," the San Francisco Chronicle reported yesterday. The woman "was recently arrested on suspicion of a felony property crime, with police identifying her based on the rape-kit evidence she gave as a victim, Boudin said." That was the only example provided, and Boudin gave few details about the case to protect the woman's privacy. But the database may include "thousands of victims' DNA profiles, with entries over 'many, many years,' Boudin said," according to the Chronicle.
"We should encourage survivors to come forward—not collect evidence to use against them in the future. This practice treats victims like evidence, not human beings. This is legally and ethically wrong," Boudin said.
ACAB.
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