- Adam Yates

Quincy Illinois is currently interviewing candidates to select a new QPD police chief, and they held a public Q&A forum. One of the questions that came up was in regard to this case. Here is the question that was asked and how the three candidates answered:

Judge Robert Adrian’s decision in the Drew Clinton sexual assault case has led to further reluctance for advisors to report their victimization to law enforcement. What strategies or innovations do you think could be leveraged to encourage survivors to report crimes of a sexual violence to police? 

YATES: One of the key components to encouraging sexual assault victims as they come forward is to make sure that they understand that they’re going to be believed and that they’re going to be taken seriously. We have worked extensively with Blessing Hospital and QUANADA in order to set up victim advocates for those individuals who go and either report sexual assault just out in the public or end up making reports if possible. There have been several improvements to sexual assault legislation that allows for third-party reporting now so that a victim does not have to come and make the report themselves. It gives us a lot more freedom to get collect the information that we need to collect up front, which is key to any investigation. The longer someone waits to make a report, the less likely it is that a successful investigation and prosecution is going to result. To your point, the decision that Judge Adrian made was devastating to victims of sexual assault. As one of those situations that is already difficult, it was, from a law enforcement perspective, tragic. We have to do better, as law enforcement, as prosecutors, as hospital staff to make sure that anyone who comes forward as a victim is treated with respect and is heard, and that prosecutions and investigations are done completely and thoroughly.

PILKINGTON: When that happened, I knew the facts of the case, and I was just dumbfounded when Judge Adrian released that young man for what he did to her, and she’s going to suffer the rest of her life. He did not do her justice. We’ve got to keep the trust with the victims. Our officers did their job in that case. As I’ve said, we do have special advocates. We work with Blessing Hospital with sexual assault victims. You can also report sexual assaults, and you don’t have to be in Adams County. You can live in McDonough County and call here, and we would take that report. If they were sexually assaulted in Florida, we take your report and send it to the appropriate agency. So the nice thing is by law, you have to take the report, whether it happens in your jurisdiction or not. At the time, that’s when that victim felt comfortable reporting that crime. I guarantee you, from what Adrian is going through, this is not going to happen again in Adams County. It was not an Adams County State’s Attorney Office problem. This was not a Quincy Police Department problem. It was a problem created by a judge.

LEWIN: I agree with everything that needs to be said. I’m not familiar with this specific case, but it sounds egregious. It sounds terrible. It’s kind of shocking, besides what I’ve heard, that that was the outcome of the case. Victim advocacy is critically important, making sure that the victims understand the process about what’s going to happen. For a lot of them, they don’t understand even what the process is going to look like. Kind of demystifying that, making them as comfortable as possible, trying to involve every component of the ecosystem that has to get involved here from, of course, the prosecution, the hospital, police, social services, to try to come up with innovative ways that we can reduce fear as much as possible. One small example might be, if the prosecutors and courts would agree, not require them to physically come in court. Maybe doing a video testimony. Some of those kinds of strategies. I was on a state task force that worked with the Illinois State Police to come up with strategies to reduce the backlog in the processing of sexual assault evidence, which can then help build confidence and trust in the whole process, which can be lead quicker case resolution, although in the case just described, the resolution does not sound like a good one. It would be a comprehensive process that would we would come up with innovative ways to try to reduce fear, to try to build confidence in the process and try to make the process as transparent as possible.

The full video of the forum can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/QuincyILGovernment/videos/749785766432748

Thank you to Muddy River News for this breaking news!
Police chief candidates discuss retention, staff morale, Adrian decision, crime rate and goat farming (yes, you read that right) during public forum – Muddy River News