Boise Police recently investigated two cases of sexual assault. One was reported near the Boise River and the other in west Boise. But in both cases, the women who said they were assaulted later recanted their stories.
Police issued a statement after the second case, saying they don’t want such incidents to keep other women from reporting sexual assaults.
Angie Munson is a detective in the Special Victims Unit at BPD. She’s been an officer for 27 years and has worked on over 2,000 cases, most of them sex crimes.
“I know that it seems like lately we have had a higher rate of recantation because we had pretty public recantations that came out. However it is very rare for someone who reports rape to recant what their story is,” Munson says.
Munson says most of the sexual crimes reported to police are valid and investigated thoroughly.
“It is the detective and the patrol officer’s responsibility to believe what they have to say and give every single case the time it deserves…so that we can come to a good outcome that is a truthful outcome,” says Munson.
According to Munson, BPD is working hard to make sure other victims are not afraid to report a crime.
“We do a lot of outreach . . . we really are spending a lot of time getting out in the community…to try to get out there and have people know who we are. We have officers in the schools. We have victim-witness coordinators whose sole responsibility is to make sure people don’t feel lost in the criminal justice system.”
She says she’s proud of what BPD does.
“I think we do a pretty darn good job talking to people, taking care of people and keeping people safe,” says Munson.
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