MILWAUKEE, Wis. – While Backlog Brad tries to rewrite the history of his failure to promptly test thousands of backlogged rape kits in Wisconsin on the debate stage, Wisconsinites know the truth. As Wisconsin’s Attorney General, Brad Schimel tested only 9 out of more than 6,000 backlogged sexual assault kitsduring his first two years in office, delaying justice for victims and letting rapists roam the streets.
Here’s what you need to know about how Backlog Brad failed sexual assault victims in Wisconsin:
- Despite receiving a $4 million grant to start testing rape kits in 2015, the Wisconsin Department of Justice under Brad Schimel’s watch only tested nine out of more than 6,000 untested rape kits in his first two years as Attorney General.
- Brad Schimel outright lied about the rape kit backlog, falsely claiming “a few hundred” backlogged kits had been tested, only for his staff to to have to correct him a few days later and confirm that only 9 had been tested.
- Schimel chose to delay getting justice for survivors to “wait for a bargain price” for testing kits. The Appleton Post Crescent reported, “Testing was a goal in Wisconsin — but it could wait for a bargain price.”
- Rather than focus on addressing the rape kit backlog, Brad Schimel asked the Legislature for funds to hire a solicitor general to chase right-wing causes. Now it’s come out that the solicitor general played a central role in crafting the legal strategy to dismantle Roe v. Wade.
- Schimel even stooped so low as to blame survivors of sexual assault for his failure to process untested rape kits, suggesting that “victim choices” were a leading cause of the kit backlog.
- But Schimel’s failures on testing sexual assault kits goes as far back to his time as Waukesha County District Attorney. Schimel allowed 26 kits to sit untested on shelves, which police officials attributed to prosecutors’ decisions. One of these kits was from a victim as young as three years old, the other a case involving an 18-year old who was sexually assaulted, but a staffer under Schimel dismissed the case as a “He Said-She Said” incident.
