RAPE KIT BACKLOG:

Progress now makes it model for ‘best practices’

State lawmakers call Memphis a model for handling the issue.

Memphis has gone from a cautionary tale for its handling of untested sexual assault kits to a model for other cities, state Sen. Mark Norris said at a summit on the issue Monday.

Following his address at the second annual Sexual Assault Kit Summit for Cities at the Cook Convention Center, Norris said the more than 12,000 untested sexual assault kits Memphis had at its peak were a “prologue, not a backlog.”

Memphis has become an important example for other cities wrestling with the same problem, said Norris, the Senate majority leader and sponsor of three laws since 2014 to erase backlogs in Memphis and across the state.

“It’s not just a Memphis problem or a Tennessee problem,” Norris said. “It’s a national one. And they’re looking to us for best practices.”

Reporters were turned away from the closed meeting, which brought together representatives from 13 other cities to talk about best practices for reducing backlogs.

Dewanna Smith, spokeswoman for Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, said the meeting was closed to media to allow the free exchange of information among participants.

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who also spoke at the summit, criticized the event organizers for closing the meeting — a move he said “made no sense whatsoever.”

Even though the city has taken steps to reduce its backlog, it still faces two class-action lawsuits filed in 2013 and 2014 over the city’s initial handling