TROY, N.Y. -- Just this week, Kim Mayo was arraigned in the stabbing death of her boyfriend on 8th Street in Troy - one of three homicides in the city this summer.
Det. Sgt. David Dean of the Troy Police Department said, "These aren't issues we run away from. There are violent crimes that happen here, and we're working our fingers to the bone to try and quell these crimes."
The grant from the Division of Criminal Justice Services will certainly help in working through the Mayo case and many other similar cases.
The funding comes through Operation IMPACT, which aides the 17 counties in New York State with the highest instances of crime.
Dean said, "IMPACT gives us the opportunity to be proactive instead of reactive, and we're able to do so much with it."
Specifically, the Troy Police Department will be assigning one detective to work solely on domestic violence cases with this round of funding.
The City of Troy is getting a major helping hand to fight crime in the form of a $600,000 grant. The Division of Criminal Justice Services is giving the money to the city under Operation IMPACT. And as our Kaitlyn Ross reports, the focus will be on domestic violence.
The three groups of people they'll focus on -- elderly people who are being abused, victims who are afraid to come forward, and juvenile offenders who are abusing within their families.
Dean said, "Domestic violence often happens under the cloak of behind-the-door, so when the police department is able to penetrate that secrecy, we have to do everything possible and the funding here today will only help that. "
The funding also extends to the Rensselaer County District Attorney's Office, which plans to assign an ADA specifically to domestic violence issues.
Rensselaer County DA Richard McNally Jr. said, "We think that by focusing on domestic violence we can really have an early impact on crime and stop it where it starts."
Domestic violence accounts for 25 percent of all violent assaults in the area. And with this $600,000, the Troy Police Department wants to bring that number down.
Dean said, "Maybe one day we can get down to zero victims."