Houston has finally allocated six million dollars to test their backlog of rape kits
and it has lead to some very very good results alright so it's evidence for more than six
thousand rape kits that went untested for years decades in some cases in Houston and
they've turned up 850 hits in the FBI's nationwide database of DNA profiles OK so all these rape
victims did what they were told to do they reported the rape they went to the doctor
they did a rape kit which of course includes physical DNA evidence of the person who has
raped them and then the state's like meh it costs too much money to test these rape kits
it could cost anywhere between $500 and $1,000 and so for decades in some cases these rapes
went you know unprosecuted not investigated and as a result these rapists were able to
go out there and rape again and again and again without any consequences so now that's
a verifiable fact because Houston started doing finally started doing the testing of
the rape kits in 2013 so they've now gone through the 6,663 rape kits there's already
been 29 cases that are brought 6 people have been convicted and they also know that some
of the people who they now know had done the rapes in the past committed more crimes in
the meanwhile they didn't get arrested so they continued to commit crimes and those
crimes were also on the record OK so this is a story that really shocks the conscience
and exposes my naivety when I was growing up if you would have told me I wouldn't have
believed this not just growing up I mean I wouldn't have believed this until really recently
like why wouldn't the cops test the rape kits that doesn't make any sense money what do
you I mean like is it rape is among the most serious crimes there is if you're not going
to spend the money on figuring who the rapist is what the hell would you spend the money
on right I mean look at the money we waste on the war on drugs and all that stuff and
the thing is I am was na�ve it turns out it is a matter of priorities and for the people
often times guys running these departments it wasn't priority for them I think that most
political issues are looked upon as in investments by politicians right so a good investment
is to funnel money into the war on drugs because private contractors for profit prisons and
so many other entities make so much money off the war on drugs right so hey these politicians
are getting funded by then entities so why not keep pushing for the war on drugs going
to war private contractors making going to war so we do waste our resources that's the
reason why we don't fund education nearly as much we fund other things that's the reason
why we don't fund you know programs that test these rape kits who's going to make money
off of that money we're not going to make money off of that we're just going to help
people that have been freakin raped I just it shocks the conscience man it's not that
much money it's just six million dollars in Houston so I know $6 million is not a tiny
amount but for a city the size of Houston it's not a gigantic ask I mean if you ask
people of Houston who my guess is are not happy about taxes but I'll raise your taxes
by whatever the number is which would be a tiny tiny number so that we can test the rape
kits that ballet measure would win what 98 to 2 95 to 5 I don't know right who's going
to say no don't bother figuring out who raped my wife my daughter whoever you know me I
mean who would say that right except the people in charge isn't that amazing and by the way
it's not just Texas' problem I have a graphic on that alright go ahead but before I get
to that I also want to tell you even though they manage to find 850 DNA matches some people
have been charged although I would argue not nearly enough graphic number 23 charges have
been filed against 29 people six of whom have been convicted since the city launched an
effort in 2013 to test the rape kits some of which dated back nearly three decades which
is so ridiculous I can't even believe that it took that long statute of limitations out
on some of those cases so even if we know exactly who did it in some of the cases they
will never be brought to justice it's amazing it's amazing so in terms of untested rape
kits in other states it's a really big problem so there are more than 12,000 in Memphis Tennessee
more than 11,000 in Detroit and 4,700 in Cleveland so all over the country these are just four
example including Houston but all over the country people thought eh rape who cares I
don't want to spend that extra money to figure out who did it look I was outraged when my
car got stolen our office got broken into this is many years ago right and no one bothered
to figure out who did it I'm like look it was a coordinated attack in two different
spots in the city happened on the same night that's a cause of concern now I realize who
was I kidding unless you're super powerful they are never going to bother trying to figure
out any case I mean yeah I would much rather have them figure out the rape cases than my
case where the car got stolen and the office got broken into I mean that's the rape is
so much more serious if they're not taking care of that of course they're not going to
take care of the other things and so these are the guys who often times tell us no no
no we had to take extreme action we had to do the chokehold and we had to shoot somebody
and we had to do all the stuff because you know we have a tough job well it's not that
tough if you're not doing it and understand that there's different levels of justice levels
within the justice system so there's cops on the front lines and then there are the
guys the prosecutors who chose to either prioritize or not prioritize there's the guy who gives
the order test the rape kits don't test the rape kits but the whole justice system up
and down is warped cause it has completely different priorities than the rest of us absolutely
but it's good to know that at least in Houston they're using their resources to go do this
and it's important for people to hold other cities and other states accountable for not
testing these rape kits cause this is a serious issue these rapists are going to go out there
and do it again I just want you to imagine the outrage if if you know cops find drug
deals in the middle of going down marijuana let's just go just with weed and they bust
them and take them in and go you know what you guys go ahead take off it's no big deal
we don't have any time or money to deal with this right now we need to put you in jail
or even incarcerate you overnight we'll need to try you just get out of here it's not a
big deal we relate to you the outrage the campaigns about how they let people run free
these hardened criminals but this is just find and no one seems to care yeah you know
look I don't want to overstate but it reminds but I'm going to use an analogy here anyway
it reminds me of the lynching the story I did a week ago about they did a counting of
all the lynching that happened between the 1880's and 1950 actually about 4,000 of them
in almost none of the cases had the person done anything and nobody even bothered to
figure out who did the crime in the first place sometimes it would involve no crime
at all sometimes it would be a real serious crime a three year old was killed the woman
was raped etc nobody gave a shit about finding out who actually did it we just want to lynch
somebody and so they go and they'd kill somebody and they'd feel better it isn't about justice
it isn't about crime solving it's about targeting certain people and so like so anybody really
thinks smoking weed is worse than rape anybody in their right mind could possibly possibly
ever say that but we spent all those resources to get certain people at 4 times the rate
as other people yes right and we put them in jail and as John Legend pointed out during
the Oscars there are now more African Americans males in prison today than there were under
slavery that were slaves under slavery that's a mind blowing fact right so all those people
are in jail but when even bothered to figure out who did the rapes