ATLANTA (AP) The state's largest public hospital is sending a police laboratory more than 1,000 packages containing sex crime evidence that it had stored since 2000.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that 1,500 of these kits piled up at Grady Memorial Hospital partly because the hospital failed to report the crimes to police. Medical staff at Grady collects samples of bodily fluids, hair and other evidence during forensic exams that are meant to gather evidence for law enforcement.
Grady officials initially told the newspaper that 130 of the kits belonged to victims who wanted the evidence shared with police. The new number provided by Grady is nearly eight times the original estimate. Grady officials did not explain the discrepancy in a statement released to the newspaper.
``Grady and law enforcement have committed to developing new strategies to harmonize patient privacy rights with law enforcement's vital mission to protect crime victims,'' the hospital said in a statement.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard helped arrange to transfer the kits to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. He said ``all parties are actively working toward a final resolution of the remaining rape kits.''
The flood of evidence has strained resources at the GBI's forensics labs. The agency lacks the manpower and funding to handle the additional workload, said GBI Deputy Director George Herrin, who runs the agency's forensic lab system. His facility can only accept 100 evidence kits per week. A single kit can cost $600 to $1,000 to analyze.
``We're completely swamped,'' Herrin said.
Saturday
November 2nd, 2024
4:30AM
