Investigation Finds That Johnson City Police Failed Sexual Assault Victims

‘Shortcomings seem to stem from misconceptions and stereotypes about women and victims of sexual assault,” an outside investigation found.

Image Credit: Johnson City Police / Facebook

By Anita Wadhwani [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –

The Johnson City Police Department failed to adequately investigate numerous reports of sexual assault over a four-year period, an independent review of the northeast Tennessee police force has found.

The report, made public Tuesday, included a review of more than 300 sexual assault reports and concluded that officers failed to collect evidence, interview suspects and witnesses and make arrests.

The report found that officers and supervisors engaged in “certain practices that discourage female victims of sexual assault from collaborating with law enforcement, ultimately damaging the investigative process.”

“Statements by JCPD investigators and Department leadership to women reporting sexual assault frequently reflect assumptions that women reporting non-stranger sexual assault are lying, and that such assaults are less severe and traumatic to victims than other serious crimes,” the report, conducted by the Daigle Law Group, said.

“These investigative shortcomings seem to stem from misconceptions and stereotypes about women and victims of sexual assault,” it concluded.

Johnson City Manager Cathy Ball called the findings “troublesome.”

She said the city was prepared to go back and take a second look at past sexual assault cases and evaluate, on a case by case basis, whether any need to be reinvestigated.

For more than a year, Johnson City has been roiled by allegations that local police protected a well-known businessman accused in multiple sexual assaults — or incompetently bungled their investigation into allegations against him. Community groups have organized protests and demanded accountability.

The allegations emerged last June with the filing of whistleblower lawsuit against the city from an unusual source: a federal prosecutor.

Kateri Dahl, a former special assistant U.S. attorney, alleged in her lawsuit that the Johnson City Police Department, either incompetently or corruptly, failed to to take a serial rapist off the streets and then fired Dahl from her contract job as a police-federal prosecutor liaison when she pursued the case.

The case first came to Dahl’s attention after a woman survived a five-story fall from a man’s apartment. Police conducting an investigation into the woman’s allegations she had been drugged, then pushed, found a handwritten list on the man’s nightstand scrawled with the first names of 23 women, under the word “raped.” The alleged perpetrator, a Johnson City real estate and business owner, was never charged or arrested for the alleged crime. He was arrested on unrelated drug charges in North Carolina earlier this year.

Dahl’s lawsuit — which remains ongoing in federal court — claims police thwarted her investigation. After she filed suit, Johnson City Police Department’s top three officials — including its chief — simultaneously took early retirement.

“While we consider (the findings) to be significant we also look at them as an opportunity,” Ball said Tuesday during a press conference, noting the force has new leadership and has already begun to tackle reforms.  “Having the information we need to move forward is so powerful.”

“To the victims, on behalf of the city administration and the Johnson City Police Department command staff, we acknowledge to you that there are cases where we did not handle your cases appropriately,” Ball said. “We are prepared to review those cases. We are prepared to open those up if needed on a case-by-case basis. We are prepared to regain your trust.”