Schimel: DOJ has sent all untested kits to labs

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel says the state Department of Justice has finished sending untested sexual assault evidence kits to private laboratories for analysis.

Schimel made the announcement Tuesday, countering criticism that DOJ is moving too slowly to finish testing.

The attorney general began a project in 2016 to test thousands of sexual assault kits sitting on police department and hospital shelves. The DOJ has identified 6,800 untested kits and is working to test 4,122 of them. The agency chose not to test kits in cases where the victim wouldn't consent to analysis or there's already been a conviction in the case.

According to the DOJ website, testing had been completed on 1,724 kits as of May 4. About 60 kits had yielded DNA hits in the FBI's database.

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