See why Long Beach's handling of sex crimes is up for debate

At the Long Beach City Council meeting on Sept. 26, the handling of sex crimes was addressed. This topic was brought up again during Tuesday’s meeting, furthering the discussion.

Legislator Denise Ford expressed concerns at the first meeting, asking why the Long Beach Police Department is the only jurisdiction in Nassau County that investigates sexual assault crimes internally rather than referring them to the Nassau County Special Victims Unit.

“I would like to know why we aren’t taking every measure to help special victims, are our officers specially trained, and if so, who are they” she asked. “If not, I would urge you to immediately change the policy and have the trained officers the best for this handle these crimes.”

Acting City Manager and Police Commissioner Ron Walsh responded to the concerns, clarifying that the department collaborates with the Nassau County Special Victims Unit on such cases.

“I can’t think of one victim of a sex crime, since I’ve been here, who did not have their interview done by the Nassau County Sex Victims Unit,” he said. “We cooperate with them, their detectives do those interviews, they record those interviews. Then we work on the cases jointly with them so that the resources of the county can fill in all the gaps just in case the resources of the city of Long Beach are not able to.”

Walsh said the department has even gone so far as a case that or cases where, if there is a complainant or a victim is not satisfied with the outcome, they ask SVU to look over the cases and make sure that they wouldn’t have done something different.

In response, Ford noted that during her consultation with the head of Nassau County SVU regarding the handling of these crimes, she was informed that Long Beach is the only jurisdiction that doesn’t directly refer such cases to the SVU.

“It’s the SVU unit in Nassau County that takes over the case and handles everything from beginning to end. Here in Long Beach, you have a different procedure,” she said.

The conversation halted at the Sept. meeting but during Tuesday’s session, Walsh revisited the topic to provide clarity.

Walsh said that Long Beach stands apart as the only police department in the county with a full-service detective squad responsible for handling all felonies. This squad conducts joint investigations for homicides and manages every other felony case within Long Beach. Their track record reportedly includes a commendable rate of case clearances and successful collaboration with individuals.

He emphasized his point that the detectives in the squad undergo more comprehensive training compared to the average special victim squad detective across the county. Moreover, he noted that they would be undergoing additional specialized training related to sex crimes.

“I want to make sure that everyone in this city knows that our investigations are done in coordination and cooperation with the county we call on their resources when we need it,” he said. “They have other resources and things that we don’t have. We have a very low percentage of these types of cases that come in, when they do they go to specially trained detectives, and they have swift supervisors who overlook these cases that have also received specialized training.”

In 2022, there were 22 sexually related crimes reported and handled by the Long Beach Police Department. So far this year, there have been 17.

These cases are primarily by one detective in Long Beach, while the county unit has 220 per detective, Long Beach police indicated.