The San Francisco Police Department will stop its practice of using victims’ DNA to link them to unrelated crimes after the policy caused a national uproar.
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott first told USA Today that the city’s crime lab would stop notifying investigators of hits on DNA from victims of sexual assault or any other crimes when it runs suspects’ DNA through its database. The police crime lab had been inputting victims’ DNA samples into a broader local database.
“We don’t want our victims to worry their DNA from a victim profile is going to be used in another unrelated case,” Scott told the news outlet.
Last week, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said that his office had learned that the city’s police force had been using DNA taken from sexual assault victims to link them to crimes. His office became aware that the SFPD had used DNA it collected from a woman years ago as part of a rape kit exam to connect her to a recent felony property crime.
Boudin expressed concerns that the practice could dissuade sexual assault survivors from coming forward.
On Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) called for the FBI to investigate what he called an “abuse of DNA evidence,” adding that he could possibly introduce legislation to “end this practice.”
“Every DA I’ve spoken to in the country – far and wide, red and blue – has absolutely been horrified at this practice,” Boudin said in a tweet. “It never should have happened.”
