This story today in the Washington Post, date-lined Charlottesville, reports:
Johnson is among 197 black men in the Charlottesville area who have been asked to provide genetic samples in recent months as part of a police hunt for a serial rapist, Charlottesville police said. The so-called DNA dragnet has caused racial tensions and raised questions about civil liberties and basic human rights in the city that is home to the University of Virginia. Some say the DNA sampling smacks of racial profiling.The Louisiana sweep referred to occurred last summer. CBSNew.com reported at the time:Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy J. Longo Sr. and the city's chief prosecutor, David Chapman, have defended the tactic, saying that it is legal and that they are simply doing everything possible to catch a man who has terrorized the community. But after the practice was criticized at a community meeting on the U-Va. campus Monday night, the two men said they would review the massive DNA sampling. * * *
Although DNA sweeps are rare, they have been used, and have generated controversy, across the country and in England. Last year, police in Baton Rouge, La., collected DNA samples from about 1,000 men as they searched for a serial killer.
Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said authorities have cast too broad a net, and he has asked Charlottesville police to develop "more precise criteria" about which men should be approached.
Longo maintains that the DNA sampling is not racial profiling, because several victims identified the rapist as a black man. If the rapist were white, he said, his officers would be swabbing the cheeks of white men. But he conceded that he is unsure whether the sampling should continue.
After examining DNA from more than 1,000 people, police issued a murder warrant Monday for a man described as the prime suspect in the killings of five women in south Louisiana, saying his DNA linked him to one of the deaths. * * *A related story from the Christian Science Monitor of 2/21/03, titled "In Louisiana, debate over a DNA dragnet", reported:Police conducted a massive 10-month DNA dragnet for the suspect, taking cheek scrapings and swabbings from more than 1,000 men. The search led some men to complain they felt pressured to volunteer their DNA to rid themselves of suspicion. Defense attorneys have questioned the legality of the search.
"If this is the right guy and if the identification and arrest of him is related to that DNA sweep several months ago -- right now those are two big ifs -- we are likely to see law enforcement agencies all over the country try out this sort of DNA dragnet when faced with a continuing crime spree ... especially if the courts don't do anything to stop them," said CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen.
As the database grows, advocates say it becomes a more powerful tool for law enforcement - and a bigger concern for critics such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, which holds that "the samples collected implicate privacy concerns under the Fourth Amendment," according to executive director Joe Cook.In a story about a DNA dragnet in Florida, the St. Petersburg Times reported 6/17/03:Later uses in unrelated criminal investigations are one concern, says Mr. Cook. Another question is whether the searches are consensual - and whether initial refusals, like Kohler's, are wrongly construed as probable cause, the cries of him who doth protest too much.
Miami police Chief John Timoney said state law directs investigators to maintain the information in the state DNA database in Tallahassee. He said the voluntary testing has been administered based on tips called into investigators and whether the men fit the description of the person in composite sketches. He said every man asked to submit DNA evidence - through a cotton swab of his saliva - has been asked to sign a consent form. "The vast majority have signed them willingly," Timoney said. "Some people have refused and have been allowed to go on their way. It's not a coercive thing, it's not been baseless, so legally we think we're fine." * * *Posted by Marcia Oddi at April 14, 2004 09:05 AMSuzanne Livingston, the director of forensics services for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said state law allows the state DNA database to hold both volunteer samples and those from people convicted of a crime. The database contains about 170,000 samples from offenders and more than 5,800 voluntary samples. Livingston said the national DNA database does not accept volunteer samples so the information would not be accessible by federal law enforcement.