Lexington Police adds new investigative unit to concentrate on special victims
The Lexington Police Department is adding a new investigative department which will specifically focus on the victims of domestic violence, child abuse and sex offenses.
According to Lexington Police Chief Robby Rummage, the Special Victim's Unit is a merger between the existing Domestic Violence program and the Criminal Investigations Unit. He said it is a way to bring more resources to the table and to develop more streamlined investigations.
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“We have always had a strong focus on domestic violence and the success of that program is well documented,” said Rummage. “We had the opportunity to kind of reevaluate some things and looked at what the demands are... Training, experience and research indicate that child abuse, neglect, domestic violence and too often sex abuse, a lot of times they cross paths. To me it just made sense to put all that under the same umbrella.”
The new SUV unit will consist of a detective who will concentrate mainly on these kinds of cases, along with a victim’s assistant and an investigative aide. Rummage said not only will this help with communication between departments, but it will also help community partners have a single contact person.
“We need to have the same consistent people when we work with others, like the Dragonfly House in Davie County. As it stands right now, we have a lot of different investigators working on child abuse, neglect and sex offenses along with all other types of crime,” said Rummage.
The Dragonfly House is a child advocacy center in Mocksville that specializes in preventing child abuse or neglect in any form though forensic interviews, medical examinations, and mental health treatment.
He said this new SUV unit will also allow Criminal Investigations to concentrate on other criminal activities, such as violent crimes.
The new unit will also have a victim's component similar to the domestic violence program. Rummage said by having a department concentrating on the most sensitive crimes, they may be able to determine there are other risk factors involved.
“Like with internet crimes, we may come up with something where a child in the city is being victimized that way, but we may uncover a domestic violence issue or some other abuse or neglect. Also, if we look into domestic violence cases, a good portion of the time kids are involved so we determine if there is a risk of them being a victim,” said Rummage.
He said they will be hiring an investigative aid to the SVU unit to help facilitate cases, coordinate resources, communicate with other investigators and to be a liaison to the district attorney and courts.
“I think it makes communications a little smoother, or at least that’s the goal,” said Rummage. “We want to take the success we have had with the domestic violence program and kick it up a little bit and add a little bit more to it.”
Rummage said that as the world changes, police departments have to be able to adapt to new technologies, platforms and scenarios. He said this new unit is to protect the most vulnerable victims and to give them the best possible results.
“My goal was the best outcome for the victims,” said Rummage. “I want us to be about accountability, service and safety. We want to hold offenders accountable, hands down, but we also want to make sure that we're doing what we can to keep people safe and provide a lot of ongoing services. These are cases where kids could be potentially involved and that should be our top priority.”
General news reporter Sharon Myers can be reached at sharon.myers@the-dispatch.com. Follow her on Twitter @LexDispatchSM.
This article originally appeared on The Dispatch: Lexington Police new unit focuses on the most vulnerable of victims
