Press Release, Sean Fagan, Prosecuting Attorney:
Prosecuting Attorney Sean Fagan would like to announce that, after a long process, the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) for Laporte County has completed its updated and expanded protocols!
Prosecuting Attorney Sean Fagan commented: “You may wonder what a SART team does. A SART team brings my Office, law enforcement, medical providers, and others to 1) foster collaboration, 2) handle sexual assault crimes, and 3) ensure victim care. The SART team
creates protocols for defining roles, victim care, evidence handling, and the like. This is guided by Indiana law, secondary documents, and good praxis. This process took longer than desired, but in July 2026, these new protocols were signed and submitted to the Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault (ICESA).”
Prosecuting Attorney Fagan continued: “The protocols were updated and expanded for two reasons. First: ICESA, in March 2026, stated that they did not have a copy of any protocols from Laporte County. Second: We expanded the scope of SART to include Domestic Violence
(DV), since sexual assault and DV are intertwined. Therefore, we have transformed into a Coordinated Community Response Team, which will include both SART and Domestic Violence in its mission scope. The protocols reflect this expansion.”
With these updated and expanded protocols, and with the monthly collaboration of the Coordinated Community Response Team, Laporte County residents can be secure in knowing that victims and families are receiving the best from its public safety and medical professionals!