Lieutenant Rebekah McKinzie retired from the Gainesville (FL) Police Department in 2024 after 20 years. Rebekah has extensive experience responding to and investigating narcotics violations, complex fraud schemes, domestic violence, crimes against children, and sexual assaults. She has spent most of her career in criminal investigations. During her time supervising the Child and Sex Crimes squad, she attended a training offered through the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence that stressed the importance of trauma-informed investigations. After attending this training, Rebekah recognized that the effects of trauma on sexual assault victims were largely misinterpreted by detectives and that this misinterpretation interfered with her detectives’ ability to properly interview victims and investigate sexual assault cases. Rebekah was an integral part of bringing the trauma-informed approach to her agency which resulted in more successful outcomes of its sexual assault investigations. After implementing and seeing the positive effects of trauma-informed investigations within her agency, Rebekah was fortunate to become a law enforcement consultant/trainer for the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence (FCASV) and now travels throughout the state of Florida instructing law enforcement, corrections, military, prosecutors, medical professionals, victim advocates about the need to use a trauma-informed approach in cases of sexual assault. She was part of End Violence Against Women International’s (EVAWI) Cadre of Experts from 2021-2023.
While at the Gainesville Police Department, Rebekah supervised the ICAC unit as well. She oversaw traveler operations, participated in undercover operations, and understands the investigative process concerning online exploitation. She has taught ICAC operations to agencies across both Florida and the U.S.
She is currently a Special Agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigating crimes against persons, including child exploitation.
Additionally, Rebekah is a certified Florida Department of Law Enforcement instructor and serves as an adjunct instructor with Santa Fe College teaching police recruits at the Institute of Public Safety. She also teaches child sexual exploitation, internet crimes against children solicitation/travel investigations, and sexual assault advanced training to sworn law enforcement.
Rebekah recognizes that there is still a lot of work to be done and currently her focus is improving the overall response to sexual and domestic violence by law enforcement to improve outcomes for survivors.