West Valley City police chief praises domestic violence program


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

WEST VALLEY CITY — For Sgt. Brandon Christiansen, patrolling the streets of West Valley City is his life.

"Almost nine years," said Christiansen. "It makes you feel good."

He has answered his fair share of domestic violence calls.

"He's my only source of income, or this is his house, and if I leave him I lose all these things," he said remembering many of the excuses he's heard over the years.

It's a cycle of abuse.

"We legally can't make people leave," he said.

But now things are changing.

"If they answer questions a certain way you have to call the (domestic violence) sanctuary."

He's referring to questions on the Lethality Assessment Protocol. It's about a dozen questions determining the amount of danger someone is in. Questions include things like, is he or she unemployed? Or does he or she spy on you? It may seem like asking a few questions is no big deal, but the West Valley Police Department is seeing a difference.

"It's us calling the South Valley Sanctuary for them and getting them in contact on the phone as we're there," he said.

West Valley City began using the screener in January, joining several other jurisdictions in the state already using it.

"In our first 30 days, West Valley alone made more referrals than the rest of the agencies participating in Utah combined," said West Valley Police Chief Lee Russo.

He's supporting the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition's request for $895,000 additional in funds to expand the program throughout the state.

The money would go to training 500 additional law enforcement officials and victim advocates.

"You realize this is a no-brainer," Russo said. "This is something we should be doing."

He says he's seen it enables his officers.

"They can truly help somebody," Russo said. "They can change lives."

After all, that's the reason Sgt. Christiansen says he got into this. Now with this tool, he hopes to end his own cycle of frustration.

"It's either the second or third time we've been to the house," Christiansen said. "When you go to those types of cases you know that, 'hey you need to get out of here.'"

Related links

Related stories

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah
Ashley Kewish

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast