WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Fairfax County plans to convene a team to study deaths springing from cases of domestic violence, a panel the county said will be the first of its kind in Northern Virginia.

The Domestic Violence Fatality Review team, which county supervisors approved on Monday, would analyze the events leading up to a homicide or suicide that results from abuse between family members or intimate partners, according to county documents.

The review team will be the eighth in the commonwealth, according to Ruth Micklem, co-director of the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance. The teams are useful, she said, in finding gaps in a jurisdiction’s response to domestic violence and identifying needed changes in local policy.

“For example, a community may find there is not communication between the courts and law enforcement and a person fell through the cracks because that [communication] wasn’t there,” Micklem said. With an updated communication policy, communities could bridge the gap for future victims, she said.

Fairfax’s team would consist of staff from the medical examiner, commonwealth’s attorney, law enforcement, mental health, family services and other local agencies, according to a report prepared by county staff. The team, which would rely on existing personnel, would be operational by early next year, according to the document.

Only two of the county’s eight homicides this year emerged from domestic incidents, said Camille Neville, a spokeswoman for the Fairfax County Police Department. Of the 18 homicides last year, she said five were domestic-related, as were five the year before that.

Statewide, the number of domestic violence deaths has not changed dramatically in recent years and continues to account for about 30 percent of all homicides, according to a July report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In 2005, the latest year the report covered, Virginia saw 147 family and intimate partner homicides.

wflook@dcexaminer.com