HOUSTON — Women and minors whose rape kits languished in Houston Police Department storage rooms have filed a class action lawsuit against current and former Houston officials, alleging that the delay in testing the kits undermined their legal cases and allowed accused perpetrators to remain free.

In a complaint filed Sunday, named plaintiff Dejenay Beckwith said that if the rape kits of prior victims of her assailant had been promptly tested, she may not have been raped in 2011.

No arrest was made until 2016, when Beckwith’s rape kit was finally tested and matched the DNA of her assailant, David Lee Cooper.

In late 2016, Cooper pleaded guilty to the 2002 sexual assault of a child, a 2009 sex assault, and Beckwith’s assault in 2011.

Houston police discovered a large cache of about 6,600 untested rape kits — some dating to the 1980s — in 2009, as they prepared to transfer materials to a new storage facility.

Rape kits are a series of DNA samplings and other evidence secured via medical procedures conducted immediately after an attack.

associated press