On Tuesday night, the Iowa City City Council passed a motion to add one full-time police-sergeant position in the wake of a $450,000 grant that stems from a nationwide initiative to strengthen the responses to domestic and sexual violence.

“The domestic- and sexual-violence grant position will continue to be overseen by the Investigations supervisors, just as our domestic-abuse investigator is now,” Iowa City police Sgt. Derek Frank said in an email to The Daily Iowan.

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“Basically, there will be a redistribution of duties that will allow for the Investigations sergeant to continue to oversee domestic- and sexual-violence cases, while some duties that are currently assigned to that position will be reassigned to the new sergeant position.”

The DI reported in an earlier article that last year, the Iowa City police dealt with 712 relationship-orientated cases. In the previous five years, there were around 600.

— Maria Kuiper