But behind the scenes, police sometimes struggle to properly respond to cases of Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct, or RVSM, according to a trove of internal affairs investigations obtained by The State News through public records requests.

One officer suggested a survivor was "making stuff up." Another violated widely-circulated protocols requiring employees to report suspected violations of RVSM to an investigatory body. And sometimes, DPPS employees themselves faced accusations of sexual misconduct.

One case — in which an officer questioned a survivor’s credibility based on the way they recounted what had happened to them — demonstrated the limitations of measures DPPS has in place to protect survivors.

DPPS Communications Manager Nadia Vizueta largely declined to comment on specific cases, but denied that there is a broader issue in how the department handles RVSM cases.

The department "recognizes the profound impact that trauma can have on survivors, and we strive to ensure that our officers are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to engage with survivors in a manner that is sensitive, supportive, and respectful," Vizueta wrote in a statement.

Police are trained to understand trauma and "minimize re-traumatization" from when they’re in the police academy to after they’re sworn in. Such issues are broached during a five to six month long field training, while shadowing the department’s Special Victims Unit, and in a task sheet that accompanies a 23-minute training video, Vizueta said.

Questioning survivors

In May 2023, a DPPS employee filed a complaint against a coworker. An officer, they reported, seemed to question if an individual who reported a sexual assault was filing "false reports" and "making stuff up to get out of (redacted)."

An investigation found the complaint to be substantiated, and the officer was given a counseling session, according to the police files.

It wasn’t the only time an officer improperly questioned a survivor’s credibility, according to the records.

Sometime in early 2024, the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office issued charges against someone campus police had arrested in a domestic violence case. Later, however, the office dismissed them without prejudice and asked officers to do "additional follow up." A defense attorney also requested further review of the arrest, according to the police files.

The requests spurred an internal affairs investigation into the officers’ initial handling of the case.

It found that while interviewing the survivor of the assault and battery, an officer questioned the individual’s credibility based on their demeanor and "inability to articulate a chronological narrative."

The officer appeared to not understand that traumatic experiences "may cause a person to display a range of demeanor and emotions," the internal affairs investigator wrote.

Details of the arrest are somewhat unclear. The investigator noted that the arrest was made based on an injury the officers saw on the survivor, but they "did not necessarily sufficiently support the circumstances of that injury with interview information."

It would have been better off, the internal affairs investigator wrote, if, instead of an arrest, the officers "forwarded (the case) to the expertise of detectives with trauma Informed interview skills and more advanced interview techniques."

The investigator recommended the officers receive additional training on how to handle domestic assault cases.

All officers are trained to understand and mitigate the effects of trauma, said Vizueta, the spokesperson. But some, like employees of the department’s Special Victims Unit, are more well-versed in how to conduct trauma informed interviews. 

Ideally, officers that are more experienced in handling RVSM would be the first to interview a survivor. But due to the nature of the job, that doesn’t always happen, Vizueta said. Sometimes, officers who are less experienced in the practice are the first ones on the scene.

"We may not know when you're going out on a call what that case is going to be involved in," she said.

It’s true that the versatility required of police officers can lead to mistakes, said Joseph De Angelis, who teaches criminology and sociology at the University of Idaho.

In many cases, officers make mistakes "not out of malicious intent," but because of the "profoundly dynamic nature of the kinds of calls that officers have to respond to," he said.

Mandatory reporting failure

In September 2024, an officer responded to a call involving reports of relationship violence and stalking. 

MSU’s mandatory reporting protocols require all MSU employees to report any potential RVSM or Title IX violations to the Office of Institutional Equity. It's a uniquely sensitive practice at MSU; deep administrative turmoil ensued in 2022 after a former business dean was fired for an alleged mandatory reporting failure.

The officer was confused about the burden of proof that needed to be met before filing a report, according to the files. There wasn’t enough information to establish a criminal complaint of stalking, and the officer assumed the same was true for a mandated report. 

The officer acknowledged the mistake in an interview with the internal affairs investigator, who determined the officer "did not intentionally neglect" the requirement. 

Allegations against the officers

In some cases, DPPS employees were themselves the subjects of sexual misconduct investigations, further demonstrating a complicated — and sometimes personal — relationship to RVSM.

One citizen complaint from late 2023 alleged a police sergeant was stalking someone. However, at the same time the sergeant was allegedly sitting outside the complainants house, video footage showed him at the police department, an internal affairs investigation found.

After the internal affairs investigator showed these findings to another employee, the employee said he has "additional evidence to identify Sergeant (redacted) having inappropriate communications with (redacted) while on duty as a police officer," including "text message images of Sergeant (redacted) receiving nude photo images of (redacted) and reacting to the images as ‘booty calls’ while on duty with the Department."

The employee shared 172 images with the investigator to support his claim, but the investigator found "no single image" that backed up his claims, according to the police files.

Another internal affairs investigation revealed that a DPPS employee was fired for harassment in fall of 2023, though it's unclear whether it was sexual. Attached to the case report are screenshots of a text conversation.

"I called you yesterday and I didn’t hear from you," the text read.

The employee’s lengthy response is entirely redacted.