KSHB 41 reporter La’Nita Brooks covers stories providing solutions and offering discussions on topics of crime and violence. She also covers stories in the Northland. Share your story idea with La’Nita.
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A Kansas City-focused deterrence program is showing measurable results in reducing violent crime and changing lives in the process.
SAVE KC brings together nonprofits, service providers and law enforcement to work with individuals closest to violence — whether as victims, suspects or those simply in proximity to it.
"That can be a victim of violence, a suspect of violence, being associated with violence, being around it," said Molly Manske, SAVE KC project director of services. "Because we know that the closer you are to violence the higher likelihood you get affected by violence in some way."
From 2024 to 2025, the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department reported that group-related homicides involving KCPD-identified violent group members as victims or suspects decreased by 40%. Nonfatal shooting incidents involving SAVE KC-involved identified individuals decreased by 23%. More than 50 people are currently being served through the program.
Manske said the program fills a gap that other efforts leave behind.
"We tell everybody to change their life and stop the violence and put the guns down," Manske said. "But nobody is walking with them and showing them how. So, that's why SAVE KC exists."
For Leeric Torrence, a SAVE KC client, the program came at a turning point.
"I was just living life as I shouldn't have, doing things I shouldn't have been doing," Torrence said. "And I was already on probation, and it just got to a point where I was doing so much that I got some peoples' attention."
Torrence has since turned that attention into opportunity.
"I got a full-time job working 60 to 80 hours a week," Torrence said. "It's a big change, a big difference than what I'm use to."
Now, Torrence hopes his story can reach others where he once was.
"My thing is just try to put a message out there that it is not impossible. I was the same way y'all was and am still the same way y'all are, and we can figure it out together," Torrence said.
SAVE KC will hold a community call-in from 6 to 8 p.m. on May 26.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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