Kym Worthy, Wayne County prosecutor
The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office gets a thumbs up and a thumbs down.
First off, a thumbs up for using a little ingenuity to address such a crucial issue. Secondly, a thumbs down for waiting so long to figure out something like this.
Jennifer Chambers of The Detroit News writes that the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office has teamed up with the Michigan Women's Foundation and the Detroit Crime Commission for a first-of-its kind collaboration to raise $10 million in public and private money to address a backlog of years of rape kit tests and pay for the investigation and prosecution of unsolved cases.
Money raised in the campaign, named Enough SAID (Sexual Assault in Detroit), will go to the Detroit Crime Commission to create a Cold Case Sexual Assault Team of specially trained detectives and attorneys to handle an estimated 3,000 cases for investigation and prosecution.
Organizers estimate it will cost $2 million annually to fund the team and that it will take approximately five years to work through all of the cases.
-- Allan Lengel
