‘How can you make a safer community?’ Kansas City OKs relocation fund for victims, witnesses
Kansas City’s health department is setting aside at least $250,000 to fund the relocation of victims and witnesses to violent crime.
The local Victim-Witness Relocation Program was approved Thursday by Kansas City Council members. The funding will become available as soon as late December.
“When people ask us, ‘How can you make a safer community?,’ it takes a good number of steps,” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said Thursday in the council chambers.
The average cost to relocate a nuclear family ranges from $3,000 to $4,000, according to the ordinance, which cites local statistics from Partners for Peace, a coalition of groups focused on violence prevention and violence interruption.
Lucas, who sponsored the ordinance with Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, District 3, said the creation of this fund supports violence intervention efforts in Kansas City, which has already recorded 169 homicides in 2022, making it the second-deadliest year on record.
Councilman Brandon Ellington, District 3 at-large, was the only council member to vote in opposition of the ordinance.
A local witness relocation fund
The Kansas City Police Department has long described the difficulty in persuading victims and witnesses to speak with them in cases of homicides and other violent crimes. Witnesses can be reluctant to come forward for many reasons, chief among them fears of retaliation.
If someone receives a knock at the door the night of the shooting, whether from a detective or an anti-violence worker, Lucas said, a common response is: “I don’t want to have this pain come onto my family from knowing that I talked.”
He has expressed hope that, in turn, this fund communicates to witnesses and victims that the city is invested in their security.
Although nearly $2 million in state funds to protect witnesses is also available, the money must be reimbursed, has to go through the police department and comes with stricter eligibility requirements, local officials said.
The city program offers another solution by allowing local agencies to approach witnesses to recent crimes and offer them resources more immediately than through the state program.
“If you’re going to step up for the public to make our whole community safer, our community is going to step up to make sure you and your family are safe,” Lucas said last week during a press conference announcing the effort.
Support from city, police, prosecutors
Branden Mims, with AdHoc Group Against Crime, said since leading AdHoc’s relocation program five years ago, he’s seen a growing need for funds such as this.
Because of AdHoc’s limited funding through fundraising, an individual or family must prove an ongoing threat to their life to get help. If they qualify, they could be temporarily moved to a hotel, or relocated permanently, depending on the situation.
“When we began doing this, we had no idea that the need would grow as large as it has,” Mims said, adding that many people who wanted to testify in violent crime cases found themselves threatened. “Since we’ve not had very much funding, we’ve limited it to those who we felt could be killed at any moment.”
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker also in support of the ordinance at Wednesday’s Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee meeting, saying her office would make use of it.
The prosecutors office, in partnership with AdHoc Group Against Crime and Jackson County’s COMBAT initiative, currently provides emergency relocation services for those involved in solved cases whose lives are in danger. Relocation, while a necessary expense, can eat into their budgets quickly.
“This is really a wonderful thing, and it shows the heart of Kansas City,” Baker said. “It acknowledges that we have a lot of hurt people in our community, and I think it’s very important that we create programs that are both for solved and unsolved types of cases.”
Luis Ortiz, commander of KCPD’s violent crimes division, also testified in support of the ordinance.
“Many victims and the suspects know each other, and sometimes they live right next to each other, and that’s what makes it difficult,” he said. “This is a tremendous opportunity to support the members of the community that are going through those difficulties.”
KC rarely used state funding
In 2019, The Star reported that an external assessment of the Kansas City Police Department found detectives had used their own money to put witnesses in hotels because the state lacked a witness protection program.
The assessment report, which was conducted by a retired Los Angeles homicide detective and a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, concluded that Jackson County and Missouri must implement and sufficiently fund formal witness protection and relocation protocols.
The following year, Missouri lawmakers created the fund during a special session on violent crime. That year, Kansas City topped its bloodiest year ever, with 182 homicides. KCPD solved 53% of the killings that occurred in the city in 2020.
The Department of Public Safety allows the money to be used on a variety of victims’ services, as long as the crime was violent or involved threats of violence and the victim was a Missouri resident and was not a perpetrator or accessory in the act. If they are set to testify, KCPD must submit a summary of their anticipated testimony to the state to get the funds. The funds are available on a reimbursement, first-come, first-served basis.
The money can be used on security for victims or witnesses, burner phones, food and housing, storage of belongings, legal fees to file for restraining orders and for therapy or counseling.
In May 2020, then-Police Chief Rick Smith said that in one week, eight of 10 surviving shooting victims declined to cooperate in the investigation or to press charges. The same was true of two-thirds of survivors in past investigations, Smith said at the time.
“There are certain parameters that a case and witness must meet,” KCPD spokesman Sgt. Jake Becchina told The Star last year. “Our investigative staff weigh the possibility of applying when cases with witnesses that need protection come along.”
By June 2021, KCPD had dipped into the funds only once for a “shelter expense” that totaled $116.68, Missouri Department of Public Safety spokesman Mike O’Connell said at the time. The funds by that point had been available for four months. $1 million was available.
The state fund currently has more than $1.9 million available to law enforcement agencies.
This calendar year, Kansas City took advantage of $8,691.74 from the pool. All in all, Kansas City has used $9,753.34, O’Connell and Kansas City Police spokeswoman Capt. Leslie Foreman told The Star last week.
