A Des Moines Police detective and two King County sergeants earned law-enforcement awards Oct. 2 in Kent for their work to combat domestic violence.
Des Moines detective Kathy Bumpus as well as Sgt. Michael Meyers and Sgt. Barclay Pierson of the King County Department of Adult and Juveile Detention received the awards from King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg at a rally for domestic violence awareness month at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center.
Bumpus received the honor for her work to help domestic violence victims obtain protection orders for themselves and their children.
In one case against a man who beat his girlfriend with a cane, Bumpus made an extra effort to track down the victim, who had moved, and helped convince her to cooperate with prosecutors.
That work by Bumpus helped give prosecutors enough information to get a guilty plea from the man involved in the domestic violence case.
Meyers and Pierson, who investigate crimes within the county jails, developed a system to track and record all outgoing telephone calls by inmates. Numerous inmates, according to the prosecutor’s office, have used telephones to violate no-contact orders or to try to intimidate witnesses not to testify against them in domestic violence cases.
With the evidence from the phone records and calls, prosecutors were able to catch inmates for order violations, witness tampering and other crimes.
“We appreciate their tremendous contribution to domestic violence prosecution,” said David Martin, senior deputy prosecutor for the county, at the rally, about the award winners.
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