PETITION CLOSED

  • The time period for signing this petition has ended.
Tell D.C. To Stop Denying Rape Kits to Victims
  1. Signatures
    1,158 out of 1,500
    Petitioning
    1. Acting Director, Office of Communications, Metropolitan Police Department (Gwendolyn Crump)
  2. Created By
    Whitney Teal
    Silver Spring, MD
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates

According to current laws in the District of Columbia, which houses six universities within the city limits, victims must essentially seek permission to allege rape.

Rape kits, which are almost always necessary for prosecution against a rapist, are not distributed unless a representative from the Metropolitan Police Department's Sexual Assault Unit gives the go-ahead, which is based on a subjective analysis of the truth of their statement.

Join rape victims in the District, like the unidentified woman currently pressing charges against the District because of the city's dismissal of her 2006 assulat near Howard University, in telling the police department that this needs to change. Rape kits should be given to any victim who requests one.

Why People Are Signing
Recent Signatures

Metropolitan Police Department's Rape Kit Protocol

Hello Ms. Crump,

As you may know, the Metropolitan Police Department is featured prominently in an investigation of the December 2006 assault of a 19-year-old student at Howard University, written by the Washington City Paper's gender columnist Amanda Hess. Besides detailing the events of that night and subsequent days, the story quotes the testimony of the detectives assigned to investigate the assault.

By his own omission, Detective Spriggs declined to give a young victim a rape kit because he was not convinced of her honesty over the phone. You'll recall that detectives are required to visit victims in person to determine the need for a rape kit.

But even if Detective Spriggs had adequately fulfilled his job description that night, it still should not be up to him or any other police officer in the Sexual Assault Unit (SAU) of the Metropolitan Police Department to decide whether a victim is worthy of a rape kit. The SAU is no doubt intimately acquainted with the role the evidence gleaned from rape kits serve in criminal investigations of rape in the Washington, D.C. area. These kits should be given to whomever requests them, not just to the victims that manage to convince the likes of Detective Spriggs over the phone.

Don't side with rapists and sexual assailants. Take the steps to eradicate this law that requires a police officer's consent to distribute a rape kit.

[Your name]

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