By Harrison Mantas
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH, Texas — Fort Worth police Chief Neil Noakes took personal responsibility for a backlog of 969 rape kits that haven’t been fully processed by the city’s crime lab.
“This is a completely unacceptable situation we’re in right now,” Noakes said speaking at an Oct. 22 city council work session.
He acknowledged the courage it take for a sexual assault survivor to reach out to the police for help, and the hurt they must feel at having their cases delayed because of untested rape kits.
“This hurts us to know we’ve hurt others,” he said.
Fort Worth sees around 350 sexual assault cases a year, so the backlog could represent roughly two years worth of cases, Distirct 8 Councilmember Chris Nettles said.
The biggest impediment has been entering tested rape kits into a state database used to match DNA from rape kits to an unknown offender.
The city budgeted for eight forensic scientists to help process these kits, but has only filled three positions, Noakes said.
And only two of the three are certified to enter the tested rape kits into the state database, he said.
Of the 969 unprocessed kits, 779 have been tested, but not entered into that database, Noakes said. He stressed that entry into the database is not a prerequisite for prosecution, but can help identify suspects when the assailant is unknown to the victim.
The other 190 untested kits have been sent to an outside vendor for testing, Noakes told the council. Roughly 116 of 190 untested kits have been sitting for longer than 90-days, he said.
State law requires rape kits to be tested within 30 days of being handed off from a hospital to the police department. If the police department doesn’t meet that threshold, it risks losing grant funding meant to help address the backlog.
Noakes said he was notified in March that the department had let hundreds of rape kits go untested beyond the 30-day window, and immediately acted to address the problem.
There’s no reason why those kits shouldn’t be tested within 30 days, Noakes told the council.
The police department is trying to actively recruit new staffers to help process the backlog, as well as reaching out to certified contractors and staffers in other law enforcement agencies who might be able to work with Fort Worth on a part-time basis, Noakes said.
He said he hoped to have the backlog completely addressed by April 2025 .
This is not the first time the crime lab has come under scrutiny for a lag in testing rape kits.
A former employee, Trisa Crutcher , filed a 174-page report in October 2020 with the Texas Forensic Science Commission , alleging falsification of records, a lag in testing child sex abuse cases, and other policy violations that could impact hundreds of criminal prosecutions.
The commission released a 126-page report in 2021 saying the issues didn’t rise to the level of misconduct.
Still, the police department fired former crime lab director Michael Ward in June 2023 , citing management issues leading to a lag in cases. Ward told the Star-Telegram in October 2023 that his firing had more to do with internal politics.
“We have failed victims in our city,” District 9 councilmember Elizabeth Beck said. She noted many residents have loved ones who have been victims of sexual assault, and said it was heartbreaking to think their justice has been delayed.
Beck thanked Noakes for his presentation and his commitment to addressing the issue, but pressed the chief to do more with the department’s social media channels to help fill vacancies in the crime lab.
Mayor Pro Tem Gyna Bivens said she reached out to Chancellor Michael Williams at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth to see if they could be of assistance at addressing the city’s backlog. The center has received national recognition for its work with DNA to identify victims of serial killers.
“We need help, and this is a crisis,” Bivens said.
Mayor Mattie Parker cited statistics from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network showing roughly two-thirds of sexual assault cases are never reported to police.
Even fewer lead to arrests, convictions and incarceration, Parker said.
She also said that while the police department had known about the problem in March, none of the members of the city council were aware of the issue until an NBC 5 investigation that aired on Oct. 9 .
The city needs to develop a culture of “see-something-say-something” so that problems like this can be more quickly addressed, Parker said.
She also promised to be transparent with the public as the city works to address the backlog.
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