CU Boulder police develop new violence prevention tool

The University of Colorado Boulder police will use a new protocol to help with violence prevention as students return to campus in August.

The new tool is called the Targeted Violence Lethality Assessment Protocol. According to a news release, TV-LAP will provide officers with a list of 12 guiding questions when interacting with a person exhibiting threatening behavior or statements.

The goal is to identify and evaluate concerning behaviors and provide help and resources before violence occurs. Examples include identifying someone with an unusual interest in violence, investigating an individual’s history of violence and considering other circumstances that may increase the likelihood of harm to self or others.

“Research has found that most perpetrators of targeted violence exhibited concerning behavior or communicated their plan to cause harm to others prior to their deadly attack,” Sarah Goodrum, research professor at the CU Boulder Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, said in a release.

The protocol is meant to enhance safety initiatives on campus, and it can help officers prepare an incident report and decide next steps. Those steps could include making a referral for a threat assessment, seeking an emergency or extreme risk protection order, making an arrest or enacting a mental health hold.

TV-LAP is similar to threat assessment tools used successfully by members of the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Education for the past 20 years. According to the news release, OUT Boulder County and the Anti-Defamation League also provided input on questions and prompts that could help to mitigate bias-based crimes.

The fall training for CU Boulder officers will include in-person sessions and video content to educate officers on how to apply the prompts to obtain useful information. CU police will evaluate and adjust the tool, and share the training with other Boulder County law enforcement agencies in the future.

TV-LAP is funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Colorado Department of Public Safety.

“The goal of this new tool is to help us obtain useful information to help disrupt violence before it occurs and connect individuals to support services,” CU Boulder police Deputy Chief Mark Heyart said in the news release. “We are excited to see this next step roll out.”