VOL. 128 | NO. 250 | Tuesday, December 24, 2013 
 
 Since August, Memphis City Council members have been reviewing the numbers. Asking questions about them. Verifying them. Categorizing them. 
 
 It is the other numbers discussion at City Hall these days – the one about how many rape kits city agencies took on sexual assault victims that the Memphis Police Department never processed over a period of approximately 30 years. 
 
 And with the filing of a lawsuit Friday, Dec. 20, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, there will almost certainly be new numbers to come. And there will be renewed questions that have taken a back seat at City Hall to the details of clearing the backlog. 
 
 The lawsuit filed by a Jane Doe sexual assault victim from 2001 against the city of Memphis is about how it happened. 
 
 The premise of the lawsuit is that it was no accident or mistake. 
 
 The lawsuit, filed by attorney Robert Spence, alleges Memphis Police Department brass knew Jane Doe’s rape kit – and maybe as many as 15,000 others – were not being tested and that the practice was “ratified by multiple policymakers within the city of Memphis Police Department.” 
 
 “Defendant has a history of discriminating against females,” the lawsuit continues. “Defendant treats domestic violence abuse reports from women with less priority than other crimes not involving women reporting domestic violence abuse.” 
 
 It also claims the city “knew about the herein described conduct and facilitated it, approved it, condoned it and/or turned a blind eye to it.” 
 
 The lawsuit alleges the lack of processing of the rape kits violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, and it seeks class-action status for a group of victims that could number more than 15,000. 
 
 The lawsuit’s estimate is based on the number of sexual assault and rape victims who made reports to third-party agencies during the time covered by the backlog, had rape kits done as part of their cases and who were then turned over to police for further investigation. 
 
 The council committee sessions are the only consistent view the public has had of the problem. Council members, early in their discussions, called for monthly progress reports on how many kits had been processed and how many showed indications of enough evidence to warrant further testing. 
 
 It’s also where the first public indications have been found of how long clearing the backlog will take and how much it will cost the city. 
 
 When the council focused its attention on the problem in August, the first committee session included plenty of questions about how this could have happened. 
 
 Council member Janis Fullilove was aggressive in her questioning about who specifically was responsible. She pushed Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong for answers, while acknowledging that the problem began long before he became police director. Armstrong repeatedly said he didn’t know. The council’s discussion shifted to how to clear the backlog. 
 
 In August, Armstrong wasn’t making even a general estimate on the number of rape kits, putting it at “several thousand.” 
 
 As the lawsuit gets into the discovery stage, he and other top police brass will be pushed for more specific and definitive answers, not only about how it happened but what the procedures were for handling the rape kits and who was responsible for enforcing those procedures. 
 
 Armstrong told council members last week he will need an additional $396,000 or will have to find that amount within his existing division budget just to address further processing of the initial group. 
 
 The backlog, according to Armstrong, stands at more than 12,000, with an initial batch of 1,600 still being processed. He is putting them in groups of 400 each, with the idea that that is about as many as multiple independent labs can each handle. 
 
 So far, three-fourths of the kits that have been processed have shown some kind of results that require additional processing. That’s more than Armstrong initially estimated. His first estimate was that about half would come back with some indications that would prompt further testing 
 
 Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. said the city is applying for state and federal grants to help pay the cost of processing the backlog. 
 
 The administration is also trying to track down a letter reportedly sent by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation that resulted in some rape kits being sent to that state agency. 
 
 City Chief Administrative Officer George Little estimated processing the entire backlog will take “several years.” 
 
 The Memphis Police Department also has plans to build a center with a laboratory specifically for testing and processing such rape kits. ||||| Memphis-based FedEx has launched its second nationwide small business grant contest with the first-place winner to receive $25,000. 
 
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 The Memphis Police Department asked for a half-million dollar grant to test more than 2,200 dormant rape kits, but an Action News 5 source says that the number of untested rape kits is upwards of 12,000. 
 
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 Thousands of untested rape kits are gathering dust inside the Memphis Police Department. The City Council could decide if more money should be used to help solve these cases. 
 
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 Twenty-five years ago, three men abducted and raped Terry Alrdrige-Burks. She was brave enough to share her reaction to the revelation police have increased the number of untested rape kits by a sixfold since originally reported. 
 
 With one million from the state and one and a half million dollars from the city council, rape kits are now being sent to private labs for testing. The DA says at a rate of 400 per month. 
 
 (WMC-TV) - Clearing the 12,113 unprocessed rape kits in the Memphis Police Department's possession will cost more than $4.6 million dollars. 
 
 That comes out to one rape every day for 33 years straight, which is enough to fill almost every seat in AutoZone Park. 
 
 Twenty-five years ago, three men abducted and raped Terry Alrdrige-Burks. She was brave enough to share her reaction to the revelation police have increased the number of untested rape kits by a sixfold since originally reported. Police revealed 2,000 untested rape kits in August. 
 
 "It does make me wonder if any of the kits were tested," she said. "The 6,000 was too big so you can imagine the 12,000 is really too big." 
 
 Burks says she called for years to see if her kit could identify her rapists. 
 
 "After I viewed them through the lineup, couldn't remember them, I got nothing. Absolutely no phone call," she said. "These are not boxes. They're women with families, with names, with friends, that have been sitting on that shelf." 
 
 Prosecutors and police say untested kits do not mean rape cases were not being investigated and prosecuted. District Attorney Amy Weirich says there are many reasons why the kits were not tested. 
 
 "It's not as if this office and law enforcement were not working, not holding offenders accountable," she said. 
 
 Weirich says some rape kits were not tested because the suspect was picked out of a lineup, confessed, and was sentenced. Also, money was a big problem. The TBI can only handle so many cases, and private labs cost. 
 
 Weirich says 400 kits a month are being sent to labs for testing. 
 
 The problem began ballooning for police and prosecutors across the country when DNA testing came about in the 1990s. 
 
 "We're gonna do what we have to do. We'll spend the amount of money we have to spend. I'll come back to the council mid-year if I feel I need additional dollars to continue the project," said police director Toney Armstrong. 
 
 Alrdrige-Burks says she applauds the department for not sweeping the problem under the rug. 
 
 Some of the results from the testing of kits could link Memphis cases to cases in other states. It could also clear people wrongly accused and re-open old cases. 
 
 Copyright 2013 WMC-TV. All rights reserved. ||||| Class Claims Memphis Spoiled 15,000 Rape Kits 
 
 MEMPHIS (CN) - Memphis did not bother to submit 15,000 rape evidence kits for testing, but merely threw them away or "caused the spoliation of the sexual assault kits," Jane Doe claims in a federal class action. 
 
 Doe is an adult victim of rape and a resident of Memphis, she says in the lawsuit against the city. 
 
 "Plaintiff and the putative class members are female individuals who reported sexual assaults to third parties, had bodily fluid samples removed from their bodies and placed within sexual assault evidence kits, and whose sexual assault kits were subsequently transported to the Memphis Police Department for testing, evidentiary and custodial purposes," the complaint states. "The City of Memphis failed to submit over 15,000 such sexual assault kits for further testing and caused the spoliation of the sexual assault kits, all of which resulted in damages to the plaintiff and the putative class, which constitutes a violation of the equal protection clauses of the Tennessee and United States Constitutions." 
 
 Doe says she was raped at around 2 a.m. on March 30, 2001, by an intruder who kicked in a window of her home. She reported the rape to Memphis police that day, and was taken to a Rape Crisis Center for treatment and collection of evidence. 
 
 "While at the Rape Crisis Center medical personnel took body fluid samples from Jane Doe and placed them into a Memphis Police Department Sexual Assault Evidence Kit," she says in the complaint. 
 
 It continues: "An officer from the Memphis Police Department transported the Sexual Assault Evidence Kit to the Memphis Police Department ostensibly for testing and to be used as evidence against the intruder. 
 
 "Over the next thirteen (13) years defendant City of Memphis never submitted plaintiff Doe's Sexual Assault Evidence Kit for testing. 
 
 "Unknown to plaintiff Doe, the City of Memphis had a policy, practice and/or custom of discarding sexual assault evidence kits. 
 
 "Unknown to Plaintiff Doe, the City of Memphis had a policy, practice and/or custom of failing to submit sexual assault evidence kits for testing: 
 
 "Over fifteen thousand (15,000) Sexual Assault Evidence Kits went untested over a period of several decades." 
 
 It goes without saying, though Doe says it, that a "disproportionate number" of the people whose rape tests were spoiled or trashed were women. 
 
 She claims that the policy of discarding rape evidence kits "was ratified by multiple policymakers within the City of Memphis Police Department." 
 
 She claims Memphis police failed to "affect an arrest of" Doe's home intruder and failed to "prevent future rapes by the intruder." 
 
 She claims that the "defendant has a history of discriminating against females" and that the "defendant's conduct was motivated by gender." 
 
 She seeks an injunction "restraining and prohibiting defendants from continuing its policy and/or custom of failing to test sexual assault evidence kits," declaratory judgment that city policy on handling of sexual assault evidence is unconstitutional, damages for civil rights violations, plus costs and attorney's fees. 
 
 She is represented by Robert L.J. Spence Jr., with Spencewalk, of Memphis.
– An anonymous rape victim has launched a class action lawsuit against Memphis, alleging that it had a policy of disregarding rape kits, either throwing out or simply neglecting some 15,000 of them over a period of decades, Courthouse News reports. Jane Doe says she waited 13 years for police to test the bodily fluids she submitted after a burglar raped her, an experience shared by thousands of other victims. In many cases, the kits spoiled while waiting for testing. The city, the lawsuit alleges, "has a history of discriminating against females," and gave these assaults a lower priority. The suit is asking the court to declare the practice unconstitutional, and to issue an injunction to end it. In November, Memphis publicly admitted that it had 12,113 untested kits in its possession, and said it would cost more than $4.6 million to test them, according to WMCTV. But the lawsuit raises new questions by arguing that this was no accident, Bill Dries at the Memphis Daily News writes. It claims that the city knew about the policy "approved it, condoned it, and/or turned a blind eye to it." The 15,000 estimate is based on the number of sexual assaults reported to third-party agencies over that period. A 2010 report estimated that 180,000 rape kits sat untested nationwide.