Anatomy of a Sexual Assault Investigation

How does an investigation happen?
What do you do?
How do you deal with it?
These are a few of the questions I'm asked quite frequently. Well for most sexual assault investigations, it all begins with a call.
Everything begins when someone, a friend, the emergency-room nurse, or a passerby sees or comes in contact with the victim and calls it in for police intervention.
The person who actually makes that call is the RP, reporting party; or the CP, calling party.  Every once in a while, rare though it may be, the RP may also be the same person as the victim.
Now, where the actual investigation begins is when the uniformed officer arrives on scene. We call him or her the Contact Officer or the On Scene officer. The Contact officer maintains control of the case until the investigation is assumed by detectives.  
What happens next determines how the investigation proceeds. I will break down the steps progressively over the next few postings. Feel free to drop me an email if there's a point you have a question about.