Roy Cooper Claims He Cleared the Backlog of Untested Rape Kits... Vice President Joe Biden Disagrees | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    Raleigh, N.C.     Last night, Vice President Joe Biden made a guest appearance on NBC's Law & Order SVU to raise awareness of the severe backlog of untested rape kits across the country.

    But in North Carolina, the person responsible for testing rape kits doesn't believe it is a problem. Roy Cooper, who runs the state's crime lab, has claimed that he has "fixed" the problems at the State Crime Lab and cleared the backlog of untested rape kits. However, as Joe Biden attested to last night, severe backlogs and chronic delays persist to this day. "When the rape kit is never, ever tested, we fail," Biden said.


Click here to watch video.

    Governor McCrory has joined a nonpartisan campaign, Test400k, to call for reforms to the handling of rape kits across North Carolina and the nation. Test400k asks state, local and national leaders in both parties to work towards the goal of testing every rape kit connected to a victim within 15 to 30 days and set up a comprehensive rape kit tracking system to ensure victims don't fall through the cracks. He has also pushed for millions in additional resources to alleviate the backlog and chronic delays at the state crime lab.

    Background:

    Independent fact checkers give Roy Cooper's claims he fixed the crime lab a "red light" on the fact-checking scale: Roy Cooper's crime lab "still experiences long processing times" (WRAL, 9/8/2016)

    There are still thousands of untested rape kits across North Carolina and prosecutors have to wait up to two years to receive evidence test results from Cooper's crime lab:

    "NC rape victims waiting 2 years for DNA test results" (WECT, 6/22/2015)

    "Backlogs in the SBI crime lab are a problem from the mountains to the coast." (Kinston Free Press, 8/9/2015)

• Contact: McCrory 2016 Press
•     media@patmccrory.com