In 2022, the Billings Police Department averaged more than one arrest for suspicion of partner or family member assault every day of the year, which ended with more than 1,000 domestic violence investigations.
There are resources in Billings for these survivors of domestic abuse, but they’re spread out across the city.
Exacerbating the task of seeking out services across town are the emotional barriers consistent with most cases of domestic abuse; anxieties over childcare, housing and income only aggravate the trauma inherent in domestic violence.
Officer Katie Nash, along with a coalition of victim services providers, would like to see the establishment of a Family Justice Center in Billings, a single location for survivors of domestic violence, neglect or sexual abuse to connect with advocates, welfare or law enforcement.
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“These cases take a long time, and when you’re having to worry about what’s happening with a pending criminal case and trying to live your life with whatever your basic needs are, it’s a lot,” said Nash, Billings Police Department’s sole officer dedicated strictly to investigating domestic violence.
In February 2023, Billings police investigated the home of a woman beaten to death. The suspect in the killing, Terrell Lee Spottedwolf Sr., was in a relationship with the woman and has since been charged with homicide.
San Diego idea
Launched in 2002 in San Diego, a Family Justice Center serves as a single point of contact for survivors. It makes immediately available law enforcement, healthcare and housing resources for anyone trying to break away from abuse. The first center started in San Diego through a partnership between local prosecutors and police. The San Diego model, which grew to include advocates and local community organizations, has been adopted in more than 100 cities in the United States. The nonprofit Alliance for HOPE International has assisted those cities in launching their own Family Justice Center.
Katie Nash is the domestic violence investigator for the Billings Police Department.
The capabilities and capacity of any given center rely on how many partners become involved. The Nampa Family Justice Center in Nampa, Idaho – whose partners include local rescue missions, the county sheriff’s office and two hospitals – has assisted more than 25,000 people since opening in 2005, according to reporting from the Idaho Press. In 2015, the Spokane Family Justice Center moved over 30 people working in the region’s domestic violence response team to one location, the Spokesman-Review reported.
Domestic violence
About a seventh of the women in the United States and one in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A quarter of the women in the U.S. have been severely injured, such as through beatings or strangulation, by a partner at some point during their lives.
In 2021 alone, according to BPD data, the department’s domestic violence investigation program completed more than 450 cases. Nash, who worked domestic violence cases during overtime hours for years before committing to the job full time, welcomed a second full-time investigator two years ago. For the majority of the past decade, however, she served as the Billings Police Department’s sole officer dedicated to strictly to investigating domestic violence, a generalization of offenses that can include physical or mental violence. While every patrol officer is trained to respond to domestic violence, she sees the investigations through to their resolution.
Last year, police arrested 462 people for suspicion of partner or family member assault. Those cases resulted in misdemeanor and felony charges. Since Nash is not tied to the radio like patrol officers, most of the cases she sees come directly from city and county attorneys. It’s through grant funding via the Billings City Attorney’s Office that Nash’s position emerged.
During the years Nash has dedicated to investigating domestic violence, she said the only thing that’s changed is the volume of serious crimes that her colleagues have been responding to in recent years. Aggravated assaults in Billings had an annual average of 448 from 2017 to 2019, according to BPD data, and jumped to an average of 794 over the course of the next three years. Homicides investigated by BPD similarly increased, averaging about 15 cases a year from 2020 to 2023, up from around six a year during the previous three years.
With BPD detectives dedicating more time to violent offenses, Nash said having someone committed strictly to domestic violence has become even more crucial.
“Almost all of my cases have some element of stalking, and so it’s very involved, and very complex,” she said.
Understanding
Domestic violence, Nash said, transcends economic or racial demographics. The survivors she’s met include women who are transient, along with doctors. While the survivors come from diverse backgrounds, she said the barriers keeping them from breaking away are fairly consistent. It frustrates Nash to hear people ask, “Why don’t they just leave?” when a myriad of factors could be at play in an abusive relationship.
“What if the shelter’s full?” Nash said. “What if (survivors) don’t have access to housing or finances? What if they’re dealing with substance abuse or have a warrant? These issues are frequently reoccurring no matter who the survivor is.
“A lot of communities, unfortunately, only start paying attention to domestic violence after a tragedy, and so it was always ‘I hope we can address it before it happens,’ but obviously there’s been tragedies in this community.”
A primary partner for Nash in addressing domestic violence in Billings has been the YWCA Billings. That partnership has evolved over the years to include some patrol officers being equipped with cell phones that give survivors a direct line to the YWCA’s 24-hour helpline. Erin Lambert, who became the organization’s CEO in June, said BPD is now bringing more women to their shelter on Wyoming Avenue than ever before.
The Billings YWCA at 909 Wyoming Avenue.
Surprisingly, she said, those who called the police to report domestic violence, and those who came to the YWCA, were mutually exclusive groups. In conversations with Nash, Lambert said she wanted to bridge that gap, which has resulted in police bringing more people to the YWCA for assistance.
Assistance includes long- and short-term housing, legal advice and accompaniment to a local hospital for medical exams for survivors of domestic abuse or sexual abuse. YWCA Billings has consistently operated at capacity, and the demand for its services has only increased over the years.
In the nearly 20 years Lambert has been with YWCA Billings, her own understanding of domestic violence has changed. She has a better appreciation for what it is, she said, and especially what it is not. An abusive relationship is not one of constant terror. Lambert likens it to living with an alcoholic.
“You might have a family member who’s an alcoholic,” she said, “and you really wish they would stop drinking. But you’re not going to stop being their family member because they’re an alcoholic.”
Abuse doesn’t define an entire relationship, Lambert said, and it’s possible for a survivor to still love their abuser. Along with that relationship, she said a survivor’s entire support system could be wrapped up with their abuser.
Abusers can also use the criminal justice system against survivors. Those tactics include calling Child Protective Services on a survivor trying to leave, or threatening to call the police should a survivor have any warrants for their arrest. The criminal justice system, Lambert and Nash said, is not friendly to victims.
“A criminal case takes a really long time to resolve, and by the time it comes to a criminal trial, (the survivor) may have reconciled with their abuser,” Lambert said. “If there’s a financial component to their relationship, and he ends up in custody, there goes child support potentially.
“And having to say terrible things about your partner on a stand in front of a jury has to be incredibly difficult and embarrassing.”
Assistance can take years of investment on the part of service providers and survivors. The 90 days offered by the YWCA’s emergency shelter is a good start, Lambert said, but that is not enough time to transition from chaos to stability. Even with the other services at the organization, like long-term housing based on an applicant’s income and relocation services, Lambert said there are still many areas for improvement.
Tribal services
Amanda Littlesun, director of the Domestic Violence Prevention Program for the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council, likewise views trauma in terms of generations. Domestic violence among Native American woman, she said, does not erupt from one bad relationship. It can have its roots potentially decades ago.
Native Americans are victims of violent crimes at higher rates than any other demographic, according to federal data. More than half of Native American women have been the victims of psychological and physical violence on the part of their intimate partners during their lifetimes, per the National Institute of Justice.
“When people don’t understand how they got into a cycle, it can be difficult to break it,” said Littlesun, an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe who grew up in Browning.
Littlesun pointed to the institution of Indian boarding schools utilized by the U.S. government as an example of generational trauma that can contribute to domestic violence. Federal and religious authorities administered the schools with the aim of assimilating Native American children, many of whom were subjected to corporal punishment and sexual abuse.
Although generational trauma is a major factor in domestic violence and abuse in general for Native Americans, Littlesun said that does not absolve them of their agency.
“I don’t want to say it’s the white man’s fault that we abuse each other, because we have a choice, but if we had a (Family Justice Center) that deals with the individual … that would be a proactive way of reducing the abuse.”
Billings center
As Littlesun noted, one possible solution to all of these dilemmas is a Family Justice Center. With the arrival of Elizabeth Stanton with AmeriCorps earlier this year to assist BPD, plans for such a center have started to take shape through studies and discussions, most recently a strategic planning session in September. Although a site and cost have yet to be determined, Nash is confident Billings will see a Family Justice Center, but can’t say for certain when.
From a law enforcement perspective, Nash said she’d like to see space for herself and other investigators to hold interviews in private, soundproof rooms.
While the YWCA already offers some of the services touted by Family Justice Centers across the country, Lambert said a center could bolster services in Billings. These include services for children, mental health counseling and onsite medical care.
Littlesun, who worked in behavioral health for the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council before heading its domestic violence prevention program, said she hopes for equity and representation. She wants to see Native Americans, and possibly survivors, counted among the staff at the center. She would also like to see a commitment to aftercare for survivors.
“Whenever you take something away from somebody, even if it’s a negative thing – addiction, a bad relationship – you also have to replace that with something better,” she said.
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