Senator Amy Klobuchar expects funding will be secured for the Abby Honold Act that's part of the violence against woman bill signed into law by President Biden in March.
It's named for a former University of Minnesota student who was sexually assaulted, but felt her initial questioning by a Minneapolis police investigator was “insensitive.”
“That was one of the many common threads that I heard over and over again, is that when they had gone into report, they were having a hard time talking about it,” says Honold. “They were having a hard time remembering things. They felt really anxious, um, and it felt like they were freezing up.”
Honold credits trauma-informed questions by a hospital nurse that revealed details of the attack and eventually sent her attacker to prison. Federal funding will pay for grants to law enforcement agencies to teach investigators trauma-informed questioning techniques.
The act calls for grant money to cover the cost of teaching law enforcement the technique of trauma-informed interviewing, which emphasizes respect toward victims. Mendota Heights Police Chief Kelly McCarthy.
“We owe it to citizens everywhere that if something awful happens to you, whether you're in Minneapolis or Elbow Lake, Minnesota, you need to know that the people who are responding have that set of skills to ensure that you are treated in a manner that is appropriate and that your offender will be held accountable,” McCarthy said.
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