1,700 untested rape kits? As former head of MPD sex crimes unit, I don't believe it

As the former head of the Minneapolis Police Department's Sex Crimes Unit, I would like to respond to the allegation of 1,700 untested rape kits ("Minneapolis police discover 1,700 untested rape kits," Nov. 16).

In 2015, due to national controversy regarding untested rape kits, my unit undertook an audit to determine if a problem existed regarding rape kit testing in Minneapolis.

A patrol officer was assigned to conduct the audit under my direct supervision. The audit covered the years 2000-2015, since that is what the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) requested for its report.

The officer went to both locations where the rape kits are stored by the MPD. She physically handled each rape kit and recorded its status on a spreadsheet she had constructed. The spreadsheet contained the case number of each kit and indicated whether it had been tested or not. If the kit had not been tested, she also recorded the reason for not testing on the spreadsheet.

It should be noted that there are legitimate investigative and ethical reasons for not testing some rape kits.

It is easy to determine whether a kit has been tested by physically looking at it. When test samples are collected and placed in a kit it is sealed for evidentiary reasons. If the seal has been broken, it has been tested. If the seal is intact, it has not been tested. The results of this physical audit were as follows:

There were 1,565 rape kits in MPD custody. Of these, 1,056 rape kits had been tested either by the BCA or Hennepin County Crime Lab. That left 509 untested rape kits to deal with.

Of these untested kits, 315 were from unreported rapes. To clarify, the victim had undergone an exam but for personal reasons decided not to report the alleged crime to the police. It would be a waste of taxpayer-funded resources to test such kits, since nothing can be done with the results. According to federal policy, DNA profiles cannot be entered into the national database unless there is a reported crime.

Of the remaining 194 untested rape kits reported to the BCA, there were legitimate investigative reasons for the kits not having been tested. Following are the four reasons testing was not conducted:

• 50% of the victims did not want to pursue the investigation any longer. For personal reasons they wanted to move on with their lives. There is much debate about this reason for not testing, but when in doubt, I erred on the side of the victim and respected their privacy.

• Another reason was that the suspect was already identified, so there was no investigative reason to test the kit. Keep in mind more than 80% of sexual assaults are committed by acquaintances. Identifying the suspect through testing is not the issue in those cases. The issue is whether the sex was consensual or not.

• The last two reasons for not testing was that the cases had been submitted to the county attorney's office and prosecution was declined, or that the suspect had been charged and plead guilty, so testing was not needed for prosecution.

Due to this audit done under my guidance I highly question the number of untested rape kits in MPD custody being 1,700. In fact, during the recent news conference, when asked by the media where these new kits came from, neither the mayor nor the chief could give an answer. The only thing they could do was apologize and talk about transparency.

I checked with multiple sources, and none of them could answer the mystery of where the 1,700 new untested rape kits came from. I highly doubt someone discovered a mysterious walk-in refrigerator containing 1,700 untested rape kits.

With no verifiable information on these 1,700 "new" kits, I have to conclude they do not even exist or the number is much smaller and thus no "big controversy" — not surprising in a political environment.

I hope the verifiable results of the 2015 audit on untested rape kits can give some closure to sexual assault victims so they can go on with their lives instead of relying on the false hope that has been portrayed.

Michael Sauro, of Eden Prairie, is a retired lieutenant of the Minneapolis Police Department.