New data ‘dashboard’ can help shine a light on Utah’s domestic violence problem, officials say

For the last two years, law enforcement officers in Utah who respond to domestic violence calls have been required to ask victims a series of 12 questions to assess how much danger they are facing in their own homes.

The numbers, now available on a state database, are alarming. Of the 23,000 interviews performed from July 2023 to July 2025 under the state’s Lethality Assessment Protocol, more than 60% showed people in those homes were facing “a potentially lethal risk,” Utah Department of Public Safety spokesperson Hillary Koellner said.

DPS’s new dashboard, unveiled at a news conference Thursday at West Jordan’s Veterans Memorial Park, makes that data available to everyone — lawmakers, law enforcement officers and people who provide services to those who experience intimate partner violence. The data, officials said, will be updated once a month.

“We can all have a better grasp of what is going on in this world, and where the gaps are,” said Beau Mason, DPS commissioner. The next step, Mason said, is to ask “how do we start moving the needle even further, to identify those gaps and address them?”

Mason and others at Thursday’s event noted that Sunday’s shooting deaths of two Tremonton police officers, Officer Eric Estrada and Sgt. Lee Sorensen, happened when the lawmen responded to a domestic disturbance.

Funerals for Estrada and Sorensen are scheduled for Thursday and Friday, respectively, at The Spectrum at Utah State University, Logan, DPS has announced. The accused gunman, Ryan Michael Bate, is being held in the Weber County jail and has been charged with two counts of aggravated murder. Prosecutors have announced they will seek the death penalty.

The shooting, Mason said Thursday, “brings urgency to how important this cause is.”

The shootings in Tremonton highlight the fact that intimate partner violence can happen in communities of any size, the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition said.

“While we would like to think that there are places in Utah that remain untouched by interpersonal violence, that is simply not the case,” the coalition said in a statement Friday. “We must acknowledge that no community is exempt from this type of violence, even in our smaller towns and rural enclaves.”

Around 20% of Americans live in rural areas, the coalition said, and homicides in rural communities are three times as likely to involve an intimate partner than in large cities.

The coalition added that “the connections between all those directly involved when domestic violence occurs in smaller communities can be profound and overlapping.”

At Thursday’s news conference, Sgt. Jen Faumuina at DSP said she and others have been training law enforcement officers statewide on the new protocol — how to ask the 12 standard questions, and how to initiate help for victims based on their answers.

“It all stems from having the victim know and be told, ‘Hey, there is a chance that you could be killed in the future,’” Faumuina said. “So, with all the data we collected by using that protocol, we can now be more transparent and share that information with the public.”

Domestic violence is an “epidemic” in Utah and affects everyone, said Lindsey Boyer, director of South Valley Services, which provides shelter and support to partners and children harmed by such violence.

“It is imperative that we invest, and we find solutions to help prevent this from continuing,” Boyer said. “This is not happening out there, to those people. It is happening here. These are our people. … Victims need your support. Their lives literally depend on it.”

Note to readers • Those who are experiencing intimate partner violence, or know someone who is, can call the Utah Domestic Violence Link Line, 1-800-897-LINK (5465), or the statewide sexual assault line run by the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault at (801) 736-4356 and in Spanish: Línea de Apoyo de Violencia Sexual las 24 Horas de Utah: (801) 924-0860.