Would Gabby Petito be alive if she had been stopped by police in a different state?

The death of Gabby Petito, classified as murder, has focused discussions on a range of topics from “Missing White Woman Syndrome” to federal laws against the unauthorized use of debit cards to the contemporary phenomenon of crowdsourced crime investigation. There’s another issue that signals attention, just like on August 12th when a police officer became engaged to Petito and her fiancé Brian Laundrie after someone witnessed a physical altercation between the two. That problem is intimate partner violence and the differences between states in the laws that govern how the police react to such cases.

This column is not about whether or not the cop did the right thing.

On Thursday, we learned that Moab City police will be conducting a handling review of Petito and Laundrie, during which their officer has decided not to arrest either party. The department will wisely ask another law enforcement agency to conduct the review.

Armed with testimony from a witness, Petito and Laundrie’s testimony, and his own observations on the couple, which included traces on Laundrie’s face, which Petito and Laundrie both admitted were from Petito, who had hit Laundrie, the officer decided, that the best course of action was to ask the two of them to spend the night separately. The roadside car stop – including the officer’s explanation of his understanding of the law – was captured with the police’s body camera.

This column is not about whether or not the cop did the right thing. In fact, given the specifics of this scenario, his actions may have been compatible with Utah law, as state law only provides for domestic violence arrest if there is evidence of grievous bodily harm, or that a dangerous weapon has been used, or that it is going to be “ongoing.” Violence “.

It was likely the officer’s attempt to mitigate the “ongoing violence” that prompted him to ask one of the couples to spend the night alone in a hotel. Of course, we now know that the couple reportedly had an emotionally charged argument at a restaurant in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, about two weeks later.

Utah’s law is different from the laws of other states, even neighboring states that are different from other states. Some states do not order arrests at all and leave the decision to the discretion of the officers. In fact, if Petitos and Laundrie’s physical altercation had happened just 80 miles down the street in Colorado, a police officer there who found the same probable cause as his colleague in Utah should have arrested Petito for beating Laundrie, regardless on the severity of the laundry violation.

We cannot even agree on a common definition of domestic or intimate partner violence in the United States.

It’s not just that relevant laws differ across the country; We in the United States cannot even agree on a common definition of domestic or intimate partner violence – although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer a suggested definition. And while the federal government has applicable laws when there is a clear federal context, such as in tribal reservations or in cases of interstate stalking, we do not have a unified approach that would eliminate the existing differences between states that either “encourage” ” an officer to make an arrest, to “may” arrest an officer and / or to instruct that an officer “must” arrest – and under what circumstances.

The tragic irony of this is that if Petito were arrested and imprisoned for beating Laundrie, it is possible – though by no means guaranteed – that she will be alive today. It is also possible that mandatory arrest policies can increase the risk of violence against one or both parties. Or perhaps improved training of the responding Moab City police officer or consultation with a domestic violence advisor would have shown certain signs that Petito was at risk.

I can’t know how different the outcome would have been, but I know that consequences as serious as having a life partner or dying shouldn’t depend on which state you live in.

It is time to rethink our approach to domestic violence laws to include police training and alliances for community services, mandatory measures to further protect victims and survivors, uniform legal definitions and standardized action by law enforcement agencies. The current disjointed approach is not good enough for us. And in many cases, it can add to another tragedy.

Frank Figliuzzi is an MSNBC columnist and contributor to national security for NBC News and MSNBC. He was the FBI’s associate director of counterintelligence, where he served as a special agent for 25 years, overseeing all espionage investigations across the government. He is the author of The FBI Way: Inside the Bureau’s Code of Excellence.