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Pictured left to right: Terry Helinski, Executive Director, Seeds of Hope Seeds of Hope; Police Chief Dan Trelka; Jeff Pritchard, government account manager-Verizon Wireless; Tom Ferguson, Black Hawk County Attorney.
Verizon Wireless presented Chief Dan Trelka and the Waterloo, Iowa Police Department with the company’s HopeLine® Champion Award: Law Enforcement Partnership for its role in investigating domestic violence cases and partnering with the cities Domestic Abuse Response Team (DART).
In 1995, prior to the start of the DART team, 33 percent of Waterloo’s approximately 493 annual domestic violence cases were dismissed due to the inability to successfully prosecute the cases. For the first half of 2011 (January 1 to June 30) Black Hawk County reduced the dismissal rate of these cases to 16.7 percent. In addition to the award, Verizon Wireless also gave a $10,000 grant to domestic violence agency Seeds of Hope through the company’s HopeLine program. The grant will be used to provide advanced domestic violence training to law enforcement officers, prosecutors, victim advocates, victim service providers and others involved in the criminal justice system.
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