Thursday, January 19, 2023

A former Cincinnati police officer pleaded guilty "to five misdemeanor counts of dereliction of duty for failing to properly investigate sex crimes assigned to him during more than a decade"

ABC:

"Significant deficiencies were found relating to 47 cases," [the prosecutor] said. "These issues included: reports of underage pregnancies with little-to-no investigations, delays in rape kit submissions, inadequate investigations relating to vulnerable victims (those with mental health issues or young children), cases with no investigation, failures to submit DNA swabs, and incorrect entries relating to DNA findings."

...

[The police chief] immediately initiated changes for the Personal Crimes Unit, including the following:

A team of investigators will be assigned to each case, made up of one lead investigator and two additional investigators for an added layer of oversight. Previously, one investigator handled each case.

Checklists will be used for every step of the process.

Quarterly audits for every active case.

Monthly updates to the Chief (or designee) on all cases.

All cases require dual-supervisors review.

A tracking process for rape kits.

Enquirer:

[The officer]'s personnel file shows his supervisor knew about problems with how rape kits were being handled as early as 2016.

... He was disciplined and his responsibilities were explained to him, but he remained on the job.

...[The officer]'s direct supervisor chose to retire shortly after the deficiencies were discovered.