Smith County commissioners approve Sexual Assault Response Team

Published 1:00 pm Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Smith County commissioners on Tuesday passed a resolution to establish the Smith County Adult Sexual Assault Response Team.

Senate Bill 476 requires the establishment of SART in all Texas counties, according to Angela Faulkner, Smith County assistant criminal district attorney.

Required members of the team include an administrator of a sexual assault program, the district attorney or a designee, the chief of the largest police agency in the county (the Smith County Sheriff’s Office and the Tyler Police Department) and a sexual assault nurse, Faulkner said.

The Legislature passed SB 476, authored by state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, that calls for the establishment of County Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTs) and outlines the minimum composition of these SARTs, their duties and responsibilities.

The Smith County team was initially assembled by District Attorney Jacob Putman and has met three times, she said.

Cheyenne Jones, the sexual assault programs coordinator for East Texas Crisis Center, is the chief presiding officer of the team, Faulkner said.

The team is working to develop protocols for how to handle sexual assault cases under new Texas law, Faulkner said. The new protocols are not due until Dec. 1, 2022.

The law aims to make communication between all agencies involved in sexual assault cases more open and make sure that they are “handling cases in not only a trauma informed way but also in the way that achieves justice for these victims and that allows us to give them all the community recourses that are available,” she said.

The new state law does not require gathering of data on the number of sex assault cases in Smith County, Faulkner said. However, the Smith county SART has been able to collect six months of data from the sheriff’s Office and the police department, she added.

The team is examining the data to look for community trends related to sexual assault, she said.

Data involving the sheriff’s office and Tyler Police Department will be examined first, Faulkner said. Once the protocols are developed, the team will be able to look at data involving smaller law enforcement agencies in the county, as well.

Beginning in 2023, submitting data to the state will be required, she said. Data must be submitted every two years from that point.

Commissioners on Tuesday also had their November employee service recognitions. Those recognized for their years of work in Smith County are:

• Taylor Heaton, county court of law 2 judge: 15 years
• Glenda Whisenhunt, HOPE Academy administrative assistant: 20 years
• Sandra Lyles, records services assistant director: 30 years