Cops Get Spun Up on Sex Assault Investigations

A statewide initiative to increase the State’s effectiveness at investigating and prosecuting sexual assaults held its first outside of Helena training session in Glasgow last week at the STAT Air hangar. The program training is the next phase in a program dubbed SAKI, or Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, and it is the culmination of years of developed research and established best practices put into a single course aimed at helping law enforcement better understand sexual assault investigations, survivors and the legal process/evidence that goes along with them.

Instructing the course was program manager and Helena Police Lieutenant Bryan Fischer and SAKI Coordinator Kayla Bragg. Together the two offere law enforcement officers insights into handling sexual assault investigations, such as evidence handling, speaking with victims, understanding trauma, communicating with survivors about the process of the investigation and the testing of evidence kits as well as ensuring the testing of sexual assault kits.

The statewide training marks a new phase in what has been a long-standing initiative led by the Department of Justice and funded by a $2 million grant from the federal government. In 2016, the MTDOJ was one of 20 recipients of the federal SAKI grant to test untested kits, strengthen victims services, prevent revictimization and develop recommendations to prevent a future backlog of evidence testing. After receiving the grant, the DOJ established that there were 1,260 kits untested across the state and retained a private crime lab to test the kits and then had those tests validated by the Montana Crime Lab.

As a result of those tests, the DOJ was able to convict one perpetrator and reopen 10 cases with the support of survivors. The tested kits matched DNA samples to 160 known persons in the CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) database. The remaining cases have not been reopened for a number of reasons.

The next step after testing kits was to improve victim services. As Bragg put it, “Many of the survivors never knew their kit wasn’t tested,” and after finding out some were upset about it. Since completing the testing of backlogged kits, Bragg says the initiative has talked to survivors who were grateful that their kits were tested and that they were contacted about the kits but, she says, they also do not want to reopen or pursue their cases.

The intent going forward is to provide a system that would allow victims to track their kit’s progress through submission and testing to the crime lab. The system, called the Montana Sexual Assault Kit Tracking System, includes a unique survivor log in for every kit so that victims can see the kit’s movement through the process. It even allows victims to receive text or email notifications telling them when the status of their kit has changed. Bragg called it a sustainable, survivor-centered approach to sexual assault investigations.

The new priority for SAKI is training law enforcement, nurses, first responders, victim advocates and county attorneys on sexual assault investigations. According to Fischer, one of the main gaps identified by the initiative was that of training. Prior to SAKI, the Montana Law Enforcement Academy spent only four hours on sexual assault investigations, which included evidence collection, survivor interview, filing a report and conducting a follow-up. The initiative changed the academy program to a 12-hour course that focused on the initiative's priorities of reducing re-victimization and getting kits tested and offenders arrested.

On top of that 12 hours at the academy, the program also implemented a separate 24 to 48 hours of training that could be done at the academy or on the road. One key element of this training is that it would be free to departments sending people to attend and it would count for Peace Officer Standards and Training and county attorney continuing education credits—annual training requirements to maintain certifications and credentials. The hope is that the program would be both accessible and valuable to attend for officers and increase the number of attendees.

Things the training has focused on are largely survivor-centric and geared towards helping officers communicate with survivors in an effective and compassionate way while avoiding inappropriate questions and re-victimization on the part of law enforcement.

“It’s a survivor-centered trauma-informed approach,” explained Fischer, before going on to say that in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he was coming up in law enforcement, “We didn’t do a good job of understanding the signs of trauma.” He said conditions that made officers think survivors were unreliable or apprehensive to provide information made them unable to investigate the crimes effectively. “Of course that was not only a Montana problem but a nationwide problem.”

Crucial to the training is the idea that the response and training need to be a community-driven operation, which is why last week’s training incorporated 37 people from a wide-array of organizations across northeast Montana including nurses from the Daniels County Medical Center and Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospitals Emergency Room, first responders from STAT Air and FMDH, evidence technicians and victim’s advocates from Glasgow, in addition to law enforcement officers from the Valley County Sheriff’s Office, Glasgow Police, Fort Peck Tribal Police and deputies from Roosevelt, Daniels and Phillips counties as well as prosecutors from Valley and Roosevelt counties.

While discussing the community response and the training attendance, Valley County Sheriff Tom Boyer chimed in, adding, “That’s what I’m excited about. What we’re working to create is that we’re bringing people in the community together to have the same approach to this issue.”