(NEW YORK) — For years, thousands of sexual assault kits sat on the shelves in Wisconsin crime labs, leaving victims and investigators desperately waiting for crucial data, according to state officials.

But new legislation that went into effect Monday aims to clear up this backlog and provide victims with more information about their investigations.

Gov. Tony Evers signed two bills that have been in the works since 2019 that establish a detailed procedure for the collection and processing of sexual assault kits. The bills also create a tracking system where victims can see the progress of the tests.

“Victims and survivors of sexual assault have already gone through the unimaginable, and their path to justice should never be obstructed or delayed,” Evers said in a statement.

Under the new laws, when a health care professional collects sexual assault evidence, a victim will have the choice to report the incident to law enforcement.

If the victim chooses to report the incident, officers have up to 72 hours to collect the kit from the health care professional, and then 14 days to send the kit to the state crime laboratories for analysis.

If the victim chooses not to report the incident, the health care provider is required to send the kit to the state crime laboratories for storage within 72 hours. The kit will remain in storage for up to 10 years, and if a victim reconsiders reporting the incident, the kit will be tested.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice will track the kits and maintain the database for the victims.

The two bills were approved by the Wisconsin state Senate in 2019, but didn’t pass in both houses until this year.

Wisconsin is the latest state to address its sexual assault kit backlog.

Virginia and Missouri have also taken efforts to streamline the process and test thousands of kits that were in storage at labs in their jurisdictions.

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(NEW YORK) — A suburban New York man threatened to attack the 2021 New York City Pride March with “firepower” that would “make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting look like a cakewalk,” federal prosecutors said Monday.

Robert Fehring, 74, of Bayport, New York, allegedly sent at least 60 letters threatening to assault, shoot and bomb LGBTQ-affiliated individuals, organizations and businesses. He was arrested Monday morning.

A search of his home last month turned up photographs from a 2021 Pride event in East Meadow, New York, two loaded shotguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, two stun guns and a stamped envelope addressed to an LGBTQ-affiliated attorney containing the remains of a dead bird, federal prosecutors said.

“As alleged, the defendant’s hate-filled invective and threats of violence directed at members of the LGBTQ community have no place in our society and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” United States Attorney Breon Peace said.

Forty-nine people were killed, and dozens were injured in the mass shooting Fehring reportedly referenced at Pulse nightclub, an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016.

Fehring has reportedly been sending these kinds of threatening letters since at least 2013, according to the unsealed criminal complaint. In them, he threatened the use of firearms and explosives.

Along with the letter threatening the New York City Pride March — in which he wrote there would “be radio-controlled devices placed at numerous strategic places” — the criminal complaint also quoted from a letter Fehring allegedly sent to the organizer of the Pride event in East Meadow.

“[W]e were right there you…FREAK!!! They couldn’t get a shot off at you, slithering around the back stage area like a snake. Too many cops. Very disappointed. But your time has come. … They are out to KILL you….and your boyfriend. You are being watched. No matter how long it takes, you will be taken out…. high-powered bullet…. bomb….knife…. whatever it takes,” the letter said.

Fehring will appear before a judge Monday afternoon.

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(NEW YORK) — The family of Emmett Till is expected to address the final report from the FBI and Justice Department’s investigation into Till’s 1955 murder at a press conference on Monday.

Till, 14, was killed while visiting family in Mississippi after he was accused of whistling at and making sexual advances toward a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. He was kidnapped, badly beaten and found in the Tallahatchie River several days later.

Carolyn Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother J.W. Milam were charged with Till’s murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. The two men later confessed to the killing in a paid magazine interview months later.

Rev. Wheeler Parker, Till’s cousin — who was 16 at the time — was in the house when Roy Bryant and Milam came looking for Till.

“I’m waiting to be shot, and I close my eyes,” Parker recalled in an interview with ABC News for an upcoming documentary series “Let the World See.” “I wasn’t shot, I opened my eyes and they’re passing by me. The guy said we’re looking for fat boy, the fat boy from Chicago.”

“They left with him, and that’s the last time we saw him alive,” he added.

Till’s murder came at a time of intense racial unrest and animosity. When his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, demanded an open casket at his funeral, it helped spark the civil rights movement.

The Justice Department opened an investigation into Till’s killing in 2004 but determined that there was no federal jurisdiction due to the statute of limitations. The investigation was originally closed in 2007 after a local grand jury declined to indict anyone on state charges.

It was reopened in 2018, following the publication of Timothy Tyson’s book “The Blood of Emmett Till,” in which Carolyn Bryant revealed she had not been telling the truth when she testified that Till had grabbed her and uttered obscenities. The Bryant family now deny that she had recanted her allegations.

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

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