Ramsey County promises new approach to sex assault cases

Jim McDonough, a longtime Ramsey County commissioner, was a 16-year-old Boy Scout in 1971. But he quit, unable to bear years of sexual abuse by his scout master.

"In July of '71, that scout master came knocking on my door, and I was just petrified," McDonough said. "He asked me to go for a ride, and I did. He shared with me that he had been just been arrested for sodomy with one of the young scouts. And he was probably going to prison for many years. And he was looking to me for sympathy."

He didn't get it. McDonough went home and hid in his room.

"I fully expected the police, the county attorney, the Boy Scouts, somebody to come knocking on my door, and say this just happened in your troop, you were a member of that troop," McDonough said. "And I sat there all day, not knowing what I would say."

That knock never came. He kept the secret for more than 40 years, until he filed suit against the Boy Scouts last year.

Now police, prosecutors and public health officials in Ramsey County say they want victims of sex assaults to know they can speak and that they'll be heard.

For starters, Ramsey County attorney John Choi says he's going to assign a prosecutor to spend nearly two years looking at cases that never made it to court. They include assaults that that weren't initially reported, weren't presented for prosecution, or weren't charged. Some may be charged if the statute of limitations hasn't passed. Choi says the others will be considered a lesson in how to find more victims and more perpetrators.

"One in six women will be a victim of sexual assault," Choi said. "One in 30 men at some time during their lifetime will be a victim of a sexual assault. But if you dig deeper into what actually comes to the attention of law enforcement to prosecution, there are huge, huge gaps."

According to Choi, experts think just one in five instances are ever reported, and in only a small fraction of those is someone ever convicted.

Paul Schnell, Maplewood, Minn., police chief, says cops have to do better to make an initial disclosure less frightening and traumatic — and more likely to happen.

"The focus should instead be on the offender," Schnell said. "What they did to reduce their risk of being detected. What vulnerabilities did they exploit on the part of the victim. What did the offender do to increase their credibility and reduce the credibility of the victim. This is how these crimes are in fact committed."

And McDonough says he thinks the first step to fixing the problem is believing it can happen, even to a boy like he was.

"This is each and every one of us's responsibilities," he said. "To be prepared if someone shares with us, to be prepared on how to make that first interaction. To be prepared to ask those questions, show that compassion, and that empathy and help that person through that trauma."