WOW! Fox News is reporting "Investigation into Moab Police handling of DV stop"
IMOO So now Police , in addition to everything else, must be responsible for Mental Health conditions leading to Domestic Abuse??
Not sure why that would be your response. LEO are supposed to be trained to assess situations. Given situations where they are called always involve humans, yes, they are supposed to be able to make some inferences about a person's state of mind and dynamics among those involved (in fact, that is what they do all day, everyday). It is part and parcel of the job.
If they do not, don't know how, or aren't trained in a particular dynamic that is a major portion of LE presence/intervention, then there is clearly some gap (in training, assignment, or personal approach) that should be addressed.
Tons of people subject to police intervention lie, obfuscate, attempt to exercise power of a sort, etc. It is LE's job to evaluate the situation. Their hands are not tied to making a superficial assessment or taking people's words for it.
In fact, UT law requires that certain information and support be provided to DV victims, so assessment must be done.
It also appears that there was some discussion among the officers about what should be done (and the park ranger evidently pulled GL aside specifically to discuss help/opportunity for her as a DV victim), so there was at least some consideration that (even absent the information from the 911 call stating that BL was hitting GL in broad daylight, which absolutely should have been relayed and taken very seriously) the real situation was not just a fist-bump over a "crazy girlfriend."
For whatever reason, the consensus decision was taken to treat BL as a DV victim and GL as the abuser. No, they are not expected to be perfect, but those with a solid understanding of common DV dynamics reasonably (and correctly) read that whole interaction very differently than how it was summed up in the police report.
Given that it appears that the police assessment was incorrect, the reasonable conclusion is that there may be additional work (training, protocol, processes, etc.) needed so that LE is appropriately equipped to evaluate domestic issues. It may also be that some changes need to be made to ensure that responding LE have all the relevant information reasonably available to them. Perhaps better communication across agencies/jurisdictions to ensure adequate information flow is needed. Or maybe all these things were in place, but in some ways protocol/best practice wasn't followed.
It is not insulting or unfair or unusual for a mistake in any system to generate an investigation. Most organizations (in general, not speaking to LE in particular) also have built-in compliance mechanisms that routinely evaluate how events and situations are handled, regardless of outcome. Compliance and risk management, audit (internal and external), and even third-party review of how tasks are performed/issues are resolved is how you ensure a system functions. And when something big goes wrong or missed, there absolutely is or should be an investigation and review of every step of the actions taken.