In its continuing effort to catch the serial rapist, the Charlottesville Police Department is utilizing a database of contacts -- primarily black men -- to eliminate potential suspects.
"The description given by the victims of the serial rapist is of an African-American male, so the database specific to this investigation is full of contacts that are African-American males," Police Chief Tim Longo said.
The department has asked some of these contacts to voluntarily consent to a DNA test -- also called a buccal swab test -- in order to eliminate their names from the database.
Graduate Education student Steven Turner recently criticized the investigation method as a violation of privacy in an article he submitted to "The Hook," a weekly Charlottesville newsmagazine.
The Charlottesville police asked Steven Turner for a DNA sample in August and again March 18.
"The Charlottesville police department has created a list of young black men who have not submitted to the DNA test and has instituted a disturbing tactic of home visits to those men with buccal kits in tow, as if they were selling benign door-to-door. No thanks, I'm not buying," he wrote in The Hook.
Steven Turner could not be reached for comment.
The database and DNA tests are not the best way to deal with the serial rapist search, African-American Affairs Dean M. Rick Turner said.
"I am calling for a meeting between the two communities," M. Rick Turner said. "We always put ourselves in a reactive mode when we need to be proactive."
M. Rick Turner added that he thinks the University and the Charlottesville Police Department need to be in constant contact regarding this issue.
"We all want the rapist to be apprehended, but there has to be a better way," he said.
Longo emphasized the database is not a list of randomly selected men. He said individuals on the list have been added for a variety of reasons -- either they were already in the records management system because of previous contact with the police, or they were added after a standard service call to police or a tip to the Crime-Stoppers telephone line mentioned them by name.
"The community expects the police department to utilize any and all permissible law enforcement techniques that will aid in the investigation," Longo said. "We are required to balance the individual rights of a person with our legitimate law enforcement purpose."
M. Rick Turner, who said he thinks this process borders on harassment, said several black men in the University community have contacted him expressing a similar sentiment.
"I am concerned about the impact on the community and University men," Turner said.
Longo said the police department wants to conduct an investigation that is both professional and in compliance with the law.
"My goal is not to disappoint the community, the University or the student body, but to do the best job I can," Longo said.
He added that he is willing to sit down and collaborate with anyone who has an idea for a more efficient way to sort through the hundreds of leads the police department receives regarding the serial rapist.
Since the police began to use the database method in early 2003 as a means to search for the serial rapist, approximately 550 men have taken the DNA test and subsequently been eliminated from further investigation.
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