Lowcountry law enforcement officers accused of skipping domestic violence training - ABC NEWS 4
(WCIV) — Sixteen law enforcement officers from the Mount Pleasant, Charleston, North Charleston and Summerville Police Departments along with the Charleston County Sheriff's Office were accused of skipping through a training video on how to handle domestic violence situations.
The accusations came to light after an officer was found talking about skipping the videos on Facebook, accord to the state criminal justice academy.
“This is a problem. It’s very easy to push away. But when we do that, what we get is South Carolina continuing and continually in the top 10 for women murdered by men. If we want that to change, we have to radically change what we are doing," said Tosha Connors, CEO of Lowcountry domestic violence shelter My Sister's House.
Connors says this is so concerning because the Palmetto State's rate of men killing women is double the national average, according to a study by the Violence Policy Center.
“Those two are a required training, so that tells you the importance of it. There are over 330 agencies in South Carolina that we deal with. There are over 14,000 officers on any day that we would push out training to. So, it’s a very small number but any one that did it would be wrong," said the director of the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy, Jackie Swindler.
Swindler says they have audited officers to find out if they were doing this and have not found any evidence of officers continuing to do so since then.
For Connors, not having this training could lead to disaster in the future.
“It’s very easy for someone to victim blame or maybe not understand why this person is making the decision, because they’re doing it for their safety. So, if you’re missing those key cues from the victim, we might see higher rates of abuse or murder later on and those are things we really want to mitigate from the beginning. It is absolutely essential that law enforcement, that those that are higher up at the training academy really take a hard look at the training that is being provided," said Connors.
The Mount Pleasant Police Department, North Charleston Police Department and Charleston County Sheriff's Office have said they're handling the situation in statements. We are still awaiting responses from Charleston PD and Summerville PD.
source: https://abcnews4.com/news/local/lowcountry-law-enforcement-officers-accused-of-skipping-domestic-violence-training
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