TPD is processing 50% of their sexual assault exam backlog

TULSA, Okla. – The Tulsa Police Department has cleared 50% of a significant backlog of sexual assault exams.

Nearly four thousand untested exams were identified in 2017.

As of November 2024, TPD’s Special Victims’ Unit confirmed Lt. Darin Erhenrich that they have tested almost two thousand of them.

“We find that by testing these kits we identify behavioral patterns and solve other crimes. It’s just a much better way of doing things,” Erhenrich said.

He explained that in the past, the police have not always processed the exams for one reason or another.

But that changed in 2017, with an executive order from former Governor Mary Fallin.

“Of the 2,000 kits we sent out for testing, we identified DNA profiles in 345 of those kits that are eligible for inclusion in CODIS,” Erhenrich said. “Of the 345 profiles uploaded into CODIS, we received 183 CODIS hits, so we have identified many perpetrators through this work.”
In the calendar year 2024 alone, the SVU received 1,280 reports.

That, on top of the untested kit, could bring that backlog to a halt.

Through grant funding that started in 2018, Ehrenrich said they were able to collaborate with other labs in the state to speed up the pace of testing.

“We have outsourced to a laboratory in Oklahoma City, and recently we also contracted with another laboratory,” he said. “Through the years of testing we have done, we now find that our capacity is approximately 150 kits per month.”

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Lori Gonzalez, of Domestic Violence Intervention Services, has been working in this field for more than twenty years. She said a backlog of sexual abuse cases is something she is used to.

“We expect to have over 500 (exams) this year, and that’s just Tulsa and surrounding areas,” she said. “If you look at the exams that have been administered in Oklahoma City and other places around the state, it’s just normal that this is going to happen, and we don’t have that many places that are actually processing these kits.”

Both Gonzalez and Ehrenrich say the funds are responsible for the years-long backup.

But Oklahoma has made great efforts to improve the process for those survivors brave enough to come forward.

“Right now the state is doing a lot of things to alleviate that problem, and one of the things they’re doing is when someone comes in and gets a sexual assault kit, they’re given a number and they can track that kit and where that package. in the process,” Gonzalez said. “So it looks like it was passed to the police, and the police passed it to the lab so people know where it is in the process.”

While perpetrators do not simply stop committing crimes when there is a backlog, SVU is committed to getting the problem under control.

“Let’s just say the Bureau of Justice Assistance did not renew our grant this year, this state is committed, I’m confident we would find a funding source to ensure we continue this work,” Ehrenrich said. “This work will not stay where it is now. We are going to clear this backlog and make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else in the future.”

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