Inside Higher Ed - McCaskill Tells Campus Police to Investigate Assaults More Quickly

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Speaking at the Campus Safety Nation Forum on Thursday, Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, urged college law enforcement officers to more speedily and thoroughly collect evidence and interview witnesses when investigating claims of campus sexual assault. "That is where the truth reveals itself," McCaskill, a former sex crimes prosecutor, said. "Witnesses corroborate or they show lies. Evidence corroborates or it shows lies. And this can't be done weeks later or even months or years later."

McCaskill described Florida State University's handling of sexual assault allegations against former star quarterback Jameis Winston as "terribly unfair" to both the accuser and the accused, in part because the university waited so long to conduct an investigation. The alleged victim reported the assault three hours after she said it occurred. The first witness, McCaskill said, wasn't interviewed until 342 days later. The campus hearing did not take place until two years after the allegations were made.

Treating all claims of campus sexual assault as worthy of a thorough investigation, McCaskill said, could help later clarify who is telling the truth in "he said, she said" types of hearings. "All of these cases deserve to be investigated one way or another," she said.

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