AKRON, Ohio -- With Akron City Council approval, Akron Police will apply for a nearly $1 million grant to begin the process of addressing cold case sexual assaults in Akron.

The police department doesn't have the staffing needed to effectively handle the city's backlog of cold cases, police officials said. The department plans to apply for the grant from the National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, which is offered through the U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance.

City Council will vote on the issue Monday, June 18.

The grant money would allow the police department to launch a three-year initiative and build a multidisciplinary team. The team would include three investigators, and an administrative specialist, for one year, Law Enforcement Planner Carol McCullough told City Council's Public Safety committee.

The grant would also pay for a case management database specifically for cold cases, as well as the partial costs of a Summit County prosecutor and a victim Assistance advocate who will work with the investigators, she said.

The team would be specially trained in "Trauma Informed Sexual Assault Investigation and Prosecution" and "Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview." The training uses a compassionate approach and takes into account the comprehensive needs of the victim, without judgement, and the varying effects such can assault can have on memory and perception

Akron Police Detective Bertina King, who is already trained in those specialties, is positioned to train other Akron detectives, she said.

"It teaches people about trauma, what they go through when they're victimized," King said. "It's going to help victims recall things they had never recalled before."

Using the special training, the team would review, prioritize, investigate and prosecute the cold cases, partnering with the Summit County Prosecutors Office, Victims Assistance, the Rape Crisis Center, and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

In 2012, the police department began assessing all sexual assault kits collected since 1993 to submit for DNA testing under Ohio's 2011 Sexual Assault Kit Testing Initiative. Under this initiative, Akron sent 1,822 sexual assault kits one year or older for DNA testing to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, McCullough said.

Of those kits, 847 returned a CODIS eligible profile, which is a database containing the digital records of DNA results collected from crime scenes, convicted felons and felony arrestees. An additional 975 kits didn't correspond with an existing DNA profile, but evidence from a crime, such as clothing or linens, were available and could be tested, McCullough said. Follow-up investigation of the assaults is needed.

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