Supervisors OK No Bid Contract to help the Slash Sheriff DNA Backlog in cases of sexual assault – San Diego Union -Tribune

With hundreds of cases of sexual assault not resolved in the county of San Diego, the supervisory board gave Sheriff Kelly Martinez on Tuesday to request a single source contract with a company that could speed up DNA tests in the crime laboratory of its office.

The sheriff’s office also has dozens of cold cases and around 40 so-called John Doe and Jane Doe who would benefit from genetic tests, officials said.

DNA tests are essential because “this leads to the identification of people who can be involved in committing crimes and plays a key role in the exemption from the accused wrongly,” said the sheriff’s office in his report to supervisors.

“In addition, future offenses are prevented by apprehending the authors before they can commit other crimes,” they said.

The County of San Diego has a long history of immediately not taking DNA samples from suspects of sexual assault.

In 2021, after years of reports according to which rape kits not tested with the victims had increased thousands, the district prosecutor Summer Stephen announced that a large part of the backlog had been eliminated.

More than 2,000 kits stored by a dozen local law enforcement organizations have been tested. The results identified 735 distinct suspicious profiles and 199 known delinquents, said the district prosecutor’s office.

All the samples have been downloaded in a national database known as CODIS, the combined DNA index system.

More specifically, the Sheriff’s office asked the county supervisors to spend up to $ 760,000 for the contract with Verogen, a San Diego biotechnology startup which was acquired by the Dutch conglomerate for $ 150 million.

Verogen is a supplier of what is called new generation sequencing, or NGS, advanced technology that allows faster DNA test treatment.

The Sheriff’s regional crime laboratory serves around thirty law enforcement agencies across the county.

Since he opened an installation of $ 107 million and 156,000 square feet in Kearny Mesa seven years ago, hundreds of sexual assaults and other major crimes have not been partly resolved due to the Tours in DNA tests, said the Sheriff’s office.

“The judicial biology section considers that there are more than 300 cases of unresolved sexual assault since 2018 with can benefit from NGS, and the homicide team of the cold sheriff has identified 25 cases to date which could benefit from the NGS,” said sheriff to supervisors.

Sheriff managers said that the non-vehicle contract was necessary because Verogen is best suited to carrying out work quickly and effectively. The cost of $ 760,000 in the agreement was paid by a subsidy from the US Ministry of Justice.

“Given the regional support and the legal sciences of the regional laboratory and the criminal justice agencies of the County of San Diego, it is necessary to obtain equipment which guarantees a standardized and validated process,” they said.

The supervisor council unanimously approved the request for a non-vehicle contract at its meeting on Tuesday.