Imagine that you are the victim of a vicious attack. You go to the hospital and physical evidence is taken so that police can use modern DNA testing to solve the case.
Instead, that evidence sits in a file cabinet for years. The case remains unsolved and you don’t even know what’s going on.
That probably happened to some women who visited Grady Hospital after they were sexually assaulted. The newspaper reported last year that the hospital had some 1,500 rape kits stored for up to 15 years, never shared with police.
Other hospitals were storing rape kits as well, including some collected after sexual assaults of children.
It’s hard to imagine a bigger failure in systems. A rape exam is a difficult and invasive procedure that collects physical evidence like bodily fluid and hair; a DNA test of the evidence can identify suspects and bring rapists to justice. But only if the evidence collected in the exam is tested.
How to explain this breakdown? It’s almost impossible to understand the variety of reasons given to reporters covering this story the past 18 months. There seemed to be confusion over what the law allows, whether victims wanted their results to be shared with police, or whose job it was to transfer the evidence and when. Let’s just stipulate to one thing we know for sure: good intentions can get lost in government bureaucracy and procedures.
Women’s advocates and victims’ groups united behind legislation to solve the problem. The law almost didn’t get approved – again for inexplicable reasons – but the AJC’s coverage and national headlines brought about public pressure, and the bill passed in the final minutes of the spring legislative session. (Georgia wasn’t alone; at least 20 states considered legislation to deal with rape kit backlogs in 2016.)
The new Georgia requires law enforcement to collect rape kits from hospitals within 96 hours. It also requires that old rape kits be turned over to state forensic labs for testing.
As of early December, more than 4,200 of these rape kits have been reported to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and about 3,000 have been sent over for testing. Some 5,400 others submitted more than a decade ago could be reexamined. Testing has identified at least two dozen DNA matches from Atlanta-area kits, including 14 matches of DNA evidence taken from children. That means there’s potential for several successful prosecutions – and more matches may be found as the crime lab finishes testing the long-stored kits.
That is all good news to investigative reporter Willoughby Mariano, who dug into the story of the stored rape kits at Grady in June of 2015, and who followed the legislation to end the backlog.
“This is exactly why I’m a reporter: To expose wrongdoing,” she told me
Mariano is super-smart and tenacious. The rape kit story was complex and difficult and she stayed on it even when officials tried to wave her off.
The sad-but-true news is that there’s plenty of wrongdoing to keep her busy. Since she joined our investigative team, Mariano has reported on misuse of property and funds seized by law enforcement in drug arrests, slumlords who profit off of neighborhood blight and abuse in a city jobs program, among many other topics.
All those stories got results – as do many of the stories she and other reporters write at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
I know, and you know, that reporters are not supposed to take sides. Despite what our critics sometimes believe, we don’t set out to write stories to achieve a certain outcome.
But it would be naïve to suggest that investigative journalism is not aimed at results. This paper did not spend years investigating cheating in Atlanta public schools without believing the cheating should stop. We did not reveal doctor sex abuse across the country with indifference to whether things improve for patients.
In revealing wrongdoing, we are aiming to improve our community.
That doesn’t mean we lobby for a particular solution or treat any of the parties involved in our stories unfairly. The same journalistic ethics apply to investigative reporting as to any other kind of journalism. Reporters like Mariano work very hard to make sure stories are accurate and complete and that anyone who might be portrayed unfavorably in an investigative report has a chance to tell his or her side of the story.
The goal of investigative reporting is to serve as a watchdog and to tell citizens when systems are broken, taxes are wasted or justice is thwarted. Sometimes things get better merely as a result of the story being told.
That’s what drives committed reporters like Mariano.
“It’s humbling to think about the impact of these stories,” said Mariano. “We may be reporting on these victims for years to come.”
We’ve pulled together a collection of stories we call “must reads,” articles we published throughout 2016 that subscribers valued for a number of reasons. We’ve put them all in one place for you to explore and share with your friends and family. This week’s focus: Stories that made a difference in our community. It includes not just investigative stories with results, but also stories that touched readers and prompted them to act. You can find the collection at myAJC.com/2016mustreads.
You can also keep up with our watchdog coverage by following us on Twitter at @ajcinvestigate or following the Watchdog Blog on myAJC. Thanks for reading and honoring us with the privilege of watching out for you.
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