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At a work session last Thursday, Lexington City Council heard information about a $200,000 grant awarded through the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services. The money from the grant will be used to cover the salary of a detective who will specialize in domestic violence and abuse cases, which have increased in the city in recent years. The grant will last for two years at which point City Manager Tom Carroll said it would most likely be renewed.
“We are optimistic that even after the two-year grant period is completed, we will have some continuing funding to offset or pay for the continuing position,” he said. “Having said that, we should not consider this grant if you’re unwilling or if we are unable to continue as a hundred percent local cost-share.”
The Lexington Police Department’s arrest data shows that the number of cases categorized as domestic assault, sexual assault and juvenile investigations each increased from 2022 to 2023. Domestic assault cases had the largest increase, from four cases in 2022 to 34 in 2023 – an increase of 750 percent – while the number of sexual assaults doubled (from three in 2022 to six in 2023), as did the number of juvenile investigations (from one to two). The upward trend seems to be continuing in 2024, with 20 domestic assaults, four sexual assaults, and two juvenile investigation cases through July 25 of this year. All three categories are projected to surpass the 2023 totals before the end of the year.
The one category that showed a decrease, aggravated assault, went from three incidents in 2022 to one in 2023, but there have already been two this year, and in at least one of those cases, Lexington Police Chief Angela Greene told council that there had been multiple calls to that location for domestic incidents. She noted that the numbers in the report were only the cases where an arrest had been made and charges had been filed, and did not include incidents where officers responded but did not make an arrest.
Part of what she hopes the new detective will be able to do, she told council, would be to be trained in how to assess domestic situations in order to help get victims out of abusive situations before it escalates to the point where an arrest is made.
“We know that there’s a lot of calls for service that we go on that are domestic-related that are verbal [confrontations] or we can’t identify enough probable cause to make an arrest at that time, and we’re constantly going back to that address until there is enough probable cause that we can make an arrest, but by then it’s too late,” she said. “Our hope is, by adding a [new detective], that we will prevent domestic assaults from happening. We don’t want to be reactive. We want to be proactive. We want to stop the trend from going up and actually decrease it.”
If the city decides to accept the grant, which council will vote on at its Aug. 15 meeting, the plan is to promote an officer already in the department to the detective role, and to hire a new patrol officer to take their place. Greene said that she’s already had two officers express interest in the position. If the grant is approved, she will open the opportunity to the officers in the department and conduct interviews, with the goal of selecting a candidate for the detective position by Labor Day. The detective will require specialized training for domestic and sexual assault investigations, but they will begin by shadowing Detective Lewis, who is currently the department’s only detective, to be trained on the process of investigation. -Along with the new position, Carroll recommended the city purchase a take-home vehicle for the position and suggested buying an electronic vehicle as a way to “explore the challenges we will face in coming years as we inevitably electrify our fleet.” When asked for her thoughts on using an electric vehicle, Greene said she agreed with Carroll.
“I think we should start moving toward being more environmentally friendly, and as the city manager said, it would be a great opportunity to test it. Instead of going to a fleet, look at one vehicle and see how it works and do some data, and [then] maybe purchase another one and go from there,” she said.
