Deadly Intent: Investigating Strangulation and Domestic Violence is a four-day, 32-hour in-person course for officers and detectives who work domestic violence cases. It follows a case from the first call to the courtroom: the predominant aggressor, evidence collection, lethality assessment, building a case that holds up without the victim, and a full day on non-fatal strangulation.

Strangulation often leaves little or no visible injury, and it has a documented relationship to later intimate partner homicide. Officers who do not know what to look for write it up as a simple assault or miss it. This course teaches the signs, the questions, the documentation, and the legal arguments that make the charge stand. Students work through 14 exercise sets, a scored interview role-play, and a capstone case file.

• Length: 32 hours over four 8-hour days
• Format: In person, agency hosted
• Credit: 32 hours of POST credit
• Assessment: Final examination on Day 4
• Bring: A notebook and a pen. All other materials are provided.

Why Strangulation Cases Get Missed

Strangulation is one of the most dangerous things one partner can do to another, and one of the easiest to miss. Pressure on the neck can cut off blood flow or air, and the victim can look fine afterward. Officers who expect bruising often find none, so a strangulation gets written up as a simple assault or not written up at all.

This course covers the full domestic violence investigation, then gives strangulation a full day of its own: the anatomy, the signs, the questions, the checklist, and the defenses you will hear from the suspect. Every day includes hands-on work. You practice each skill before you leave the room.

Day 1: Foundations of Domestic Violence

Definitions and the History of the Law

Current legal and clinical terminology, how statutory definitions vary by jurisdiction, and how the law moved from a private-matter doctrine to mandatory and preferred arrest.

Scope and Underreporting

How common domestic violence is, and why so much of it never reaches you.

Why Victims Stay

The cycle of violence, the power and control wheel, coercive control, battered woman syndrome, traumatic bonding, and psychological entrapment. A group activity has you match each theory to real victim behavior.

Forms of Abuse

Physical, emotional, sexual, financial, digital, and reproductive coercion, with the signs that go with each. You review injury photographs by type and mechanism.

Stalking

Behavioral indicators, and the link between stalking, escalation, and lethality. A corroboration worksheet shows how to document it.

Officer Safety and Initial Response

Pre-arrival information gathering, scene approach, and what the officer-injury data for this call type shows. It is not what most officers assume.

Day 2: Evidence and the Predominant Aggressor

Determining the Predominant Aggressor

The IACP standard for finding the party who poses the most serious, ongoing threat. Mandatory and preferred arrest policy, how each leads to dual arrests, and the errors that misidentify the aggressor, including injury-based assumptions and the mutual combat fallacy. You work a case file to a decision.

Scene and Injury Documentation

Distance photographs, close-ups with scale, and follow-up photography. In the photography lab you rotate through hands-on stations, and an alternate light source demonstration shows what ALS can reveal in non-visible bruising and where its evidentiary limits are.

Digital Evidence and Search Warrants

Cell phone data, social media records, and surveillance video, and how to obtain them lawfully. You draft a search warrant affidavit in class.

Lethality and Danger Assessment

The risk factors tied to intimate partner homicide, and how to screen for them and document what you find.

Hearsay, Crawford, and Building Cases Without the Victim

Present sense impression, excited utterance, statements for medical diagnosis or treatment, and recorded recollection. Crawford v. Washington and forfeiture by wrongdoing when the defendant is the reason the witness is gone. The elements of witness and victim intimidation, and why they matter at bond.

Suspect Interviews and Miranda

Miranda, Dunaway v. New York, Oregon v. Elstad, and Missouri v. Seibert applied to scene and custodial interviews. Then the skill itself: a rapport-based, non-accusatory interview that keeps the suspect talking. Exercises cover leading versus non-leading questions, body language categorization, and a rapport-and-rights role-play.

Day 3: Non-Fatal Strangulation Investigations

Terminology, Anatomy, and Physiology

Strangulation, choking, and suffocation are different things, in medicine and in court. You learn the jugular, carotid, and laryngeal and tracheal pathways of injury, and how little pressure it takes to occlude each. That is why so many victims have no visible injury.

Initial Response, Statements, and Questions to Ask

What to say, what to ask, and what to listen for. Mock 911 and body-worn camera audio lead into a strangulation victim interview exercise, with an incident summary and victim and suspect interview transcripts.

Signs and Symptoms Across Body Systems

Visible and non-visible signs in the head, eyes, ears, nose, and throat, and in the cardiovascular, respiratory, and neurologic systems, plus behavioral changes. A photo sort exercise has you match injuries to mechanism and system.

The RTI Strangulation Checklist

A standardized checklist for capturing injury, history, and evidence in one pass. Every student gets a printed copy and applies it in a guided lab. The block also covers forensic imaging, medical follow-up, and timed follow-up photography.

Predominant Aggressor and Common Defenses

Offensive and defensive injury analysis applied to strangulation. How to rebut accident, self-defense, mutual combat, victim self-infliction, and the claim that no visible injury means no crime. A paired case-file exercise puts it to work.

The BDSM and Consensual Choking Defense

When a suspect says it was consensual, you have an investigative problem. This block covers the evidence that tests the claim and the controlling case law on consent as a defense to assault and battery, with a case analysis discussion.

Self-Defense and Accident Claims

How to separate a genuine self-defense or accident claim from a convenient one.

Charging, Detention, and the Link to Homicide

Charging and pretrial detention considerations for strangulation and related intimidation or stalking charges. The course also covers the documented relationship between non-fatal strangulation, later intimate partner homicide, and violence against officers and other responders.

Day 4: Interviewing, Reports, and Testimony

Trauma-Informed Victim Interviewing

Open narrative collection and non-suggestive follow-up. The evidence-based neurobiology of trauma response, including fragmented and non-sequential recall, so a disjointed account does not read as a lie. The course explains the science and makes no clinical diagnosis of any individual. A scored victim and suspect interview role-play follows.

Recantation and Keeping the Victim Engaged

Documented recantation patterns and how to build a case that survives one. You practice responding to a recanting victim.

Objective Report Writing

Facts only. No unsupported opinion, no conclusory language. A workshop has you turn opinion and conclusion into objective, fact-based language.

Courtroom Testimony

Direct and cross-examination strategy, and how expert witnesses fit in. You take cross-examination practice.

Capstone Case Study

You get a complete case file. Identify the predominant aggressor, find the evidentiary gaps, and decide which charges the evidence supports. Then present your analysis. The course closes with the final examination.

What You Will Be Able to Do

• Apply the IACP predominant aggressor standard and avoid the errors that lead to wrongful dual arrests
• Photograph and document injury and scene evidence, including timed follow-up photography
• Assess lethality and document the risk factors tied to intimate partner homicide
• Build a case that does not depend on the victim, using the hearsay exceptions and Crawford
• Recognize and document non-fatal strangulation with the RTI Strangulation Checklist
• Rebut the common defenses, including consensual choking claims
• Interview victims and suspects, write an objective report, and testify under cross-examination

Related RTI Courses

RTI also teaches these subjects separately: Domestic Violence Criminal Investigations (15 hours) and Strangulation Investigations (8 hours). Deadly Intent covers both in one 32-hour course.

What to Bring

A notebook and a pen. Everything else is provided: a guided notes packet with the exercise manuals bound in, a printed RTI Strangulation Checklist for every student, and the case scenario packets and forms.

Accreditation

Deadly Intent: Investigating Strangulation and Domestic Violence has 32 hours of POST credit.

Most law enforcement training exists because someone needed to fill a POST requirement. You've sat through that training. You know exactly what it looks like.

RTI courses are built by working investigators who got tired of watching officers fail in the field because their training never matched reality. Every module is grounded in current forensic science, tested against real case outcomes, and built to hold up in court, not just in a classroom.

No rubber-stamp certificates. No recycled slide decks from a decade ago. No instructors whose only qualification is that they once attended the course they're now teaching.

If you do the work, you'll leave with skills you can use on your next shift.
That's the standard RTI trains to.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does strangulation get so much attention in a domestic violence case?

Non-fatal strangulation often leaves little or no visible injury, and it has a documented relationship to later intimate partner homicide. Officers who miss it lose the strongest evidence of how dangerous the suspect is. Day 3 of this course is devoted to recognizing, documenting, and charging it.

Who should take this course?

Patrol officers, detectives, and supervisors who respond to or investigate domestic violence and strangulation cases.

Does the course teach how to identify the predominant aggressor?

Yes. Day 2 covers the IACP standard, mandatory and preferred arrest policy, dual arrests, and the errors that misidentify the aggressor, with a case-file exercise. Day 3 applies the same analysis to strangulation cases.

Can I build a case if the victim will not cooperate?

That is the goal of Days 2 and 4. You learn the hearsay exceptions that apply, Crawford v. Washington, forfeiture by wrongdoing, and documented recantation patterns, then practice the strategies in class.

How hands-on is the course?

Very. There are 14 exercise sets, including an evidence photography lab, a search warrant affidavit, a lethality screening, interview role-plays, report writing, cross-examination practice, and a capstone case file.

What do I need to bring?

A notebook and a pen. RTI provides the guided notes packet, exercise manuals, the printed RTI Strangulation Checklist, and all case materials.

Does the course count for POST credit?

Yes. Deadly Intent: Investigating Strangulation and Domestic Violence has 32 hours of POST credit.

Is there a final exam?

Yes. Day 4 ends with a final examination. After the exam, students complete a short end-of-course survey and receive a certificate.

How is this different from the separate Domestic Violence and Strangulation courses?

RTI's Domestic Violence Criminal Investigations course is 15 hours and Strangulation Investigations is 8 hours. Deadly Intent covers both subjects in one 32-hour course, with a full day on strangulation, interview role-plays, report writing, testimony practice, and a capstone case file.

Can my agency host this course?

Yes. Deadly Intent is delivered in person at host agencies. The host provides a classroom sized to the class, breakout space for small-group work on Days 2 through 4, audio playback, and a room that can be dimmed for the alternate light source demonstration. See the in-person training page for how hosting works, or contact us.

Is there an online version?

No. The photography lab, interview role-plays, and cross-examination practice need people in the room, so the course is in person only.