The Pitt County Sheriff's Office has received a $200,000 grant to help combat domestic violence.
The sheriff's office says after a year of research, they applied for and received the grant that would allow them to identify common themes of domestic violence and develop a better response.
Detective John Guard says Pitt County was one of 12 locations in the country to receive the grant and the only one in the state.
Guard says, "Studies show that 14-16 percent of all homicides nationally are domestic violence related. If you look locally, we know for a fact, in the state of North Carolina, the percentage over a four year trend from 2008-2011 is over 22 percent."
Guard says in Pitt County, 53 percent of all homicides in the last four years are domestic violence related.
