MARTINSVILLE (WSLS 10) - Training is underway in Martinsville to help law enforcement reduce domestic violence homicides.
Thursday was the first day of the two-day Lethality Assesment Program training.
About 50 people from five agencies are participating.
The training, which is offered by the Virginia Attorney General's Office, teaches law enforcement to ask certain questions when they respond to a domestic violence call.
The goal is to determine if a victim is at a high risk of being killed and if so, help connect them to local domestic violence resources.
Washington County Sheriff's Office Det. Stephen Reed has had the training before and says it works. He is helping the Attorney General's Office with the training.
"We've done a lethality assessment, in less than a year, on I think 67 individual cases. 83 percent of those cases screened in as high risk," Det. Reed explained.
Lisa Furr, program coordinator for the Attorney General's Office, says this training session has been months in the making.
"We've been in conversation with Martinsville for months," Furr said. "I came down to a coordinated community response and talked with a whole room full of folks who were interested in implementing that here."
Franklin and Pulaski Counties and the city of Radford received the training in 2016.