If there’s one thing you can count on police to do, it’s find increasingly disturbing ways to violate people’s rights. Anytime you think you’ve heard the sketchiest police story, another department rushes in to top it. Today, San Francisco is taking the gold. Why? Turns out San Francisco police compiled a database of sexual assault survivors’ DNA — and they’re using it to identity potential suspects.
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin revealed the practice in a statement Monday, after a woman’s DNA sample that was collected for a rape kit years ago was used to link her to a recent property crime in the city. Boudin said his office only learned of the police practice last week and condemned it as “treat[ing] victims like evidence, not human beings.”
