NATIONAL NEWS

Los Angeles sheriff’s department to retest 4,000 DNA samples after using faulty kits for 8 months

Mar 27, 2025, 11:10 AM

FILE - A roll of police tape is left on the windshield of Los Angeles County sheriff's vehicle in t...

FILE - A roll of police tape is left on the windshield of Los Angeles County sheriff's vehicle in the parking lot of its training academy in Whittier, Calif., Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said this week it will retest 4,000 DNA samples and open an internal investigation after learning that it used potentially flawed test kits for eight months.

Sheriff’s officials said Wednesday that a test kit manufacturer sent a letter in August warning the department to stop using certain kits that were prone to giving incomplete results. However, the letter was received by a civilian employee who didn’t discard the kits or send them back, according to a department statement.

The department used the flawed kits from July through February, testing thousands of samples from criminal investigations.

The problem was discovered Monday when a supervisor at the department’s Scientific Services Bureau found the manufacturer’s letter.

The department said it has opened an internal investigation to assess how much the faulty kits have affected criminal cases, and will retest some 4,000 DNA samples.

“We take the integrity of our criminal investigations and the reliability of our forensic testing very seriously,” Sheriff Robert Luna said in a statement. “The Sheriff’s Department is working diligently to assess the impact and to prevent such situations from occurring again.”

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said his office had begun working with the sheriff’s department to determine the extent of the problem.

Sheriff’s officials said the bad tests might have led to incomplete results, but they are “not likely to have falsely identified any individual.”

The department declined to name the manufacturer.

National News

Associated Press

LA firefighters union leaders suspended after audit finds $800,000 in undocumented spending

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Top officials at the Los Angeles firefighters labor union were suspended Monday after an audit conducted by its parent organization found over $800,000 in credit card spending, some of it by the union’s president, could not be accounted for. The International Association of Fire Fighters, which oversees firefighter unions across the […]

23 minutes ago

Associated Press

Chester town official shot a lost DoorDash driver seeking directions, upstate NY police say

CHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A town official in upstate New York has been arrested after state police say he shot and wounded a delivery driver who got lost and approached his house seeking directions. John Reilly, the highway superintendent in Chester, a town nearly 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Manhattan, was charged Saturday with […]

54 minutes ago

A visitor looks at the warden's house at Alcatraz Island on Monday, May 5, 2025, in San Francisco. ...

Associated Press

The federal Bureau of Prisons has lots of problems. Reopening Alcatraz is now one of them

Eleven inmate deaths in less than two months. More than 4,000 staff vacancies. A $3 billion repair backlog. And now, a stunning directive from President Donald Trump for the crisis-plagued federal Bureau of Prisons to “REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!” — the notorious penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay that last held inmates more […]

2 hours ago

Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs speaks to protesters at a rally in Raleigh, N.C., on Mon...

Associated Press

Federal judge says results of North Carolina court race with Democrat ahead must be certified

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Disputed ballots in the still unresolved 2024 race for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat must remain in the final count, a federal judge ruled late Monday, a decision that if upheld would result in an electoral victory for Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs. U.S. District Judge Richard Myers agreed with Riggs […]

2 hours ago

Associated Press

A fiery highway crash in eastern Kansas kills 8 people, including 3 from Oklahoma

GREELEY, Kan. (AP) — Two vehicles collided head-on and burst into flames on a two-lane highway in rural eastern Kansas, killing eight people, including a high school student, a teacher-coach and a school employee from Oklahoma, authorities said Monday. The crash occurred at about 5:45 p.m. Sunday on U.S. 169 outside of the small town […]

3 hours ago

FILE - Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty explains her progressive approach to prosecutions, Ju...

Associated Press

Justice Department plans to investigate prosecutor’s office in Minnesota’s most populous county

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation of the prosecutor’s office in Minnesota’s most populous county after its leader directed her staff to consider racial disparities as one factor when negotiating plea deals. Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican lawyer who’s the new director of the agency’s Civil Rights Division, announced the […]

4 hours ago

Los Angeles sheriff’s department to retest 4,000 DNA samples after using faulty kits for 8 months