SACRAMENTO — The Berkeley Police Department cannot explain why it never alerted the public in 2008 about a report that a stranger abducted two teenagers at gunpoint near Berkeley High School, then raped one and sexually assaulted the other.

Nor can police say why, in 2008, they did not send the rape kit in that case to a laboratory to see if there was a DNA profile that could help identify the assailant.

The department’s inability to explain its inaction in a case that only now — eight years later — is being prosecuted raises questions about whether police investigated the crime report after it was made on May 16, 2008, by the two teens, who were then 15 and 19 years old. The department has denied The Chronicle’s requests for records in the case, citing privacy concerns over the victims, but did release a log with limited information. It showed when the call came in and when police transported the victims to a hospital, where a rape kit exam was performed on the older teen.

The Alameda County district attorney’s office is prosecuting a man for the assault on the two teens, a prosecution that was made possible only after the district attorney’s office urged the Berkeley Police Department along with other departments in the county to clear their backlog of rape kits.

Berkeley police sent the rape kit in the case to a laboratory six years after the crime was reported, and the lab test produced a DNA profile that in 2014 police matched to Keith Kenard Asberry Jr., an Antioch man with a lengthy crime record who, before his arrest in 2015, had allegedly assaulted another woman.

Court records show that Berkeley police interviewed the two victims, now in their 20s, in 2015. It’s unclear whether police contacted the victims after the night of the crime in 2008 and before the 2015 interview.

After The Chronicle initially wrote about the rape and sexual assault of the teens last month, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said he was concerned about the department’s handling of the kit and asked the city manager and police chief for information about how they handle rape kits.

In response, Berkeley police Capt. Andrew Greenwood said the department no longer shelves rape kits, an answer that satisfied Berkeley’s mayor.

“I’m pleased to see the police department’s response and that they will make sure all these cases are promptly processed in the future,” Bates said in a statement.

California lawmakers have taken aim at addressing untested rape kits with legislation, including AB1848, which would require rape kits to be tracked by law enforcement so that the state will know how many kits go untested each year and why. Another bill, AB2499, would give victims the ability to track the progress of their rape kit. SB813, which would eliminate the state’s 10-year statute of limitations for sex crimes, will be considered by the Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday.

Berkeley police Lt. Kevin Schofield said the department tracked down officers who worked in the department in 2008 and would have known about the case. No one, however, knew why the rape kit was not tested, he said.

“This particular kit appears to have fallen through the cracks,” Schofield said. “I just can’t give you a clear answer on what happened, because we just aren’t sure.”

Schofield said it was also unclear why the department did not issue a public safety alert or a news release after the reported crime. In 2008, Berkeley police regularly shared such information with the public. For example, the department issued a crime alert for a string of daytime burglaries in the north Berkeley hills and a news release about a stabbing at a liquor store on University Avenue.

The department continues to issue such alerts to raise public awareness and just recently issued one for an attempted abduction.

Schofield said crime alerts are issued on a case-by-case basis.

“Because it’s been eight years, I don’t know why one was not put out for this,” Schofield said.

Although it is not known what happened in the Berkeley case, crime victim advocates say police too often are skeptical of reports by rape victims.

“Sexual assault, no matter where you start, you go back to the idea that women aren’t believed and aren’t taken seriously,” said Kimberly Lonsway, research director at End Violence Against Women International. “We’ve seen that in communities across the country. This is much bigger than DNA. It’s the fundamental skepticism about rape reports.”

The two teens reported that a man with a gun approached their car on Allston Way in Berkeley, just a block from Berkeley High School, before 10 p.m. on May 16, 2008, and jumped into their backseat. He forced the 19-year-old to drive to a dead-end street, where she said he blindfolded her with her sweater and then raped her in the car before digitally penetrating the 15-year-old girl.

The man robbed them, then left.

Asberry, a 31-year-old Antioch man, faces multiple felony counts in the 2008 kidnapping, rape, sexual assault and robbery of the teens in Berkeley. He is also facing burglary and attempted sexual assault charges in a 2015 case in Berkeley in which a 46-year-old woman fought off her attacker inside her home. Police collected a bloodstain from the woman’s shirt and matched it to Asberry, who by then was already wanted in the 2008 case.

Asberry is representing himself in the 2008 case and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing June 21 at the René C. Davidson Courthouse in Oakland.

“How could you not put everything into solving a case where two teens are sexually assaulted at gunpoint?” asked Natasha Alexenko, a national advocate for testing all rape kits after her own languished in New York for almost 10 years. “We have to hold those accountable who let something like this through the cracks. This is clearly a public safety issue that this person wasn’t put behind bars.”

The same year the two teens reported the rape, Berkeley police reported to the state that they had 25 incidents of rape or attempted rape, according to data collected by the Office of the Attorney General. Data show that in that year, 2008, just two cases were submitted to the district attorney for prosecution or were closed for other reasons, a case clearance rate of 8 percent. That was the lowest rate among 10 cities that are similar in composition, like Davis and Chico, or similar in population, like Santa Clara and Concord.

The Berkeley Police Department — which self-reports those statistics — said their records show that there were 24 reports of rape in 2008 and that two cases were closed after a suspect was arrested, four cases resulted in a warrant for prosecution and seven others were closed after the victim declined to pursue the case or there wasn’t enough evidence to send the case for prosecution.

Schofield said he did not know why there was a discrepancy between what the department reported to the attorney general and the records they have internally.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez