San Francisco sued by woman who says her rape-kit DNA was used to arrest her
Enlarge / San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott answers questions in a meeting with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022. (credit: San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images)
San Francisco has been sued by a sexual assault victim in a complaint that describes "the San Francisco Police Department's shocking practice of placing crime victims' DNA into a permanent database without the victims' knowledge or consent."
"Plaintiff Jane Doe, a sexual assault survivor, was re-victimized by this unconstitutional practice," alleged the lawsuit filed Monday in US District Court for the Northern District of California. "In 2016, she provided a DNA sample to the San Francisco Police Department as part of its investigation into her sexual assault. However, she never consented to it to be stored or used for any other purpose. Nevertheless, the Department maintained Plaintiff Doe's DNA in the database for more than six years."
According to the lawsuit, Jane Doe was arrested on burglary charges in 2021 after DNA from a crime scene apparently matched the DNA she provided five years earlier. The charges were eventually dropped.