Las Vegas police receive grants to clear rape kits backlog

By Megan Messerly
Las Vegas Sun

LAS VEGAS — Las Vegas’s crime lab will begin testing all of its more than 6,300 backlogged rape kits in Southern Nevada after it received $5 million today in funding from two national grants and the Nevada attorney general’s office.

Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. announced that Metro police will receive two separate grants to test 5,643 rape kits from Metro and 739 from eight other local agencies. Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt also pledged an additional $1.7 million today from a Bureau of Consumer Protection settlement finalized last month to test the kits.

“What we are doing today is going to make a gigantic dent,” said Biden in New York City, adding that the jurisdictions chosen to receive the funds were those with the highest backlogs of rape kits.

Full Story: Metro Police receive grants to clear backlog of rape kits