I received this letter today….and thought I would share in case anyone was interested.
Friends, fellow students, community leaders, and concerned individuals,
My name is Dan Myers. I am a second year law student at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, an alumnus from Case Western, and co-chair of the Social Justice Outreach Committee at Church of the Covenant, located across from University Hospitals on the campus of Case Western. I’m writing you because we have a serious problem in Cleveland, Ohio regarding the failure of the city to inventory or document the number of rape kits it has in storage. Without this basic information, it is nearly impossible to have a public discussion about why these kits go untested, how much it would cost to have them tested, and the effect this has on the safety and well-being of our colleges and community at large.
This all started in response to an investigation conducted by CBS news late last year ( http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/10/earlyshow/main5600821.shtml ). CBS evening news interviewed a woman named Valerie Neumann. Her tragic story can be found in the linked article. I went to school and was a fraternity brother with Valerie’s brother at CWRU.
Our plan, as discussed with some members of the Church of the Covenant, is to have as many people as possible sign individual copies of the attached letter, and then I will come to collect these letters. I will seal them into envelopes, we will contact the necessary media outlets, and then a group of us will deliver these letters all at once to both Cleveland’s Mayor and Cuyahoga County’s Prosecutor, Bill Mason. We feel that this sort of attention is necessary to get some action on this issue.
The letter does not ask for much. By signing it, people are merely stating that they want Cleveland officials to inventory, count, and determine how old the untested rape kits are that are in storage around Cleveland.
I am writing all of you because you have either already expressed interest in assisting with this, are interested in signing a letter, or are a leader in an organization which I believe would care about this issue, and would be able to disseminate these letters to your members so that they can be signed. If you can do that, and then collect them form your members, let me know when a good time is to come by and pick these up. If you have any further questions about this, the letter, the issue, or our proposed plan of action, please contact me either via email or by my phone number (216) 276-1496. Our time frame on this is to have these letters signed and ready to deliver by the end of April. If you know of any other groups or interested individuals, please pass this along to them. Again, we will have the greatest impact if we collect these letters ourselves, and then a small group of us deliver them at one time with local media involved. If you want to offer to help in any other way, please also let me know that.
So if you are willing to print these out and disperse them to others, please collect them from them and let me know where I can come to pick them up.
Thank you for your time, and I hope that you can assist in this campaign to see change in Cleveland. We are not affiliated with any political party or any candidate. This idea was brainstormed in a church committee meeting at Covenant.
Best,
Dan Myers
——————–LETTER
Mayor Frank Jackson
Cleveland City Hall
601 Lakeside Ave.
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
Mayor Jackson:
We have a problem in Cleveland.
In November 2009, CBS News conducted a nationwide investigation that revealed over 20,000 rape kits that were never sent for testing. This is a problem. Even worse than this nationwide problem is a local tragedy—Our city does not know how many untested kits that it has in storage and does not know how long these kits have sat in storage without being tested.
Untested kits are a real problem. When kits remain untested, the guilty are able to avoid justice, rapists are allowed to commit more sexual assaults, victims of rape where alcohol is present are less likely to futilely report these crimes, and our friends, family, and children are all endangered.
We understand that budget concerns may prevent the testing of all kits. We understand that prosecutors have discretion in deciding which cases to prosecute. We understand that Ohio has a state testing laboratory with a lengthy turnaround time for kit testing. These are issues that should be discussed, but we cannot discuss them until we fix our local problem..
What we cannot understanding—what we will never understand—is why the City of Cleveland does not know how many untested kits it has in storage. How can we address the budget concerns until we know for what we need to budget? How can we address an alleged policy of not timely prosecuting rape where alcohol is involved? We cannot begin the public discourse necessary to solve these problems until we first know the extent of the problem.
Therefore, I request that the City of Cleveland count the number of untested rape kits it has in storage and identify how long the untested kits have been in storage. This request is neither unreasonable nor impossible. Your citizens are owed that much.
Sincerely,
______________________________ ______________
(Signature) (Date)
Cc: Bill Mason
This was the goal of the entire trip!!!
