Members of the Utah Legislature are weighing a proposal that would change the way that police officers and deputies respond to domestic violence situations.
SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Legislature is inching closer to a new law that might have saved Gabby Petito’s life in summer of 2021.
Now under consideration in the Legislature, Senate Bill 117 would require police to assess the potential lethality of domestic violence situations and create a statewide database for those assessments.
“By creating resources for law enforcement to use when handling domestic violence situations,” says Chris Wilson (R-2nd Dist.), “authorities will be able to better perform their critical work of protecting every Utahn from harm.”
Victim advocates say that the problem of domestic violence is reaching epidemic proportions here in Utah.
Speaking to members of the Cache County Council on Jan. 24, Interim County Attorney Dane Murray reported that, since 2014, local authorities have seen a 260 percent increase in crimes against so-called special victims.
Those crimes include felony domestic violence, felony child physical abuse, sex offenses against children, sex offenses against adults, Internet crimes against children and homicides.
Those local statistics are just the tip of the iceberg, however. State officials say domestic violence is on the rise across Utah.
Utah Department of Health and Human Services reports that 22.7 percent of Utah homicide victims died at the hands of an intimate partner or in a domestic violence related incident.
Moreover, nearly 54 percent of those victims had a known history of intimate partner violence that had been previously reported to local authorities.
“Domestic Violence Amendments (SB 117) aims to lower those percentages,” Wilson explains, “by making two changes to the current practices of reporting domestic violence incidents.”
The first of those changes would require police officers responding to a domestic violence call to ask a potential victim a series of questions to assess the possible lethality of the situation. Those questions are contained in a nationally recognized Lethality Assessment Protocol (LAP).
Administration of a LAP might have saved Gabby Petito’s life in the summer of 2021.
Petito, 22, was an aspiring traveling influencer on a cross-county road trip with fiancé Brian Laundrie that summer. While in Utah, their relationship turned violent and Petito contacted the Moab Police Department for assistance.
Allowed to continue on their way, Petito was later reported missing after Laundrie returned home to Florida. Her body was eventually found in Grand Teton National Forest, a victim of strangulation.
Laundrie subsequently died in a Florida nature preserve of a self-inflict gunshot wound, leaving a notebook in which he admitted killing Petito.
Petito’s parents have filed a lawsuit against the Moab Police Department, charging negligence in letting the couple go.
SB 117 would also create a statewide LAP database as a resource for police officers.
“When responding to a domestic violence call,” Wilson adds, “that data would allow authorities to review any previous LAP reports, incident reports or probable cause statements, giving them a more complete picture of the history of domestic violence incidents.”
The estimated cost of SB 117 is $100,000 in one-time funds and $1.7 million in continuing appropriations
SB 117 was introduced by Sen. Todd Weiler (R-Dist. 8) in January.
As of Feb. 8, it had been referred to the House Rules Committee for additional fiscal analysis.