Original Article Here on The Detroit Free Press
By ANDREA MAY SAHOURI
December 4th, 2025
The group’s new program at Cody High School called “Detroit Keepers,” launched at the end of last school year.
Valerie Mitchell of Force Detroit said she knew she and the other “violence interrupters” at Cody High School were making an impact when they recently left their posts at the school for just one week for trainings.
When they got back:
“We had the principal coming to us. We had kids coming to us, security guards. And everybody asking us, ‘Where have y’all been? We needed y’all,” she said.
In the school hallways and in one-on-ones, Mitchell, 35, and the others were updated on everything that happened during their brief absence. Then they got back to work.
Force Detroit is a community violence intervention (CVI) group based in the city’s west side. It’s made up of “violence interrupters” — some call them “credible messengers” — who use their influence in Detroit’s most violent neighborhoods to deescalate conflicts before they turn dangerous and prevent retaliatory bloodshed.
The group’s new program at Cody High School called “Detroit Keepers,” launched at the end of last school year and funded by the city, functions on the belief that anyone can be a violence interrupter in their own circles and make Detroit safer. And it’s a belief they want to instill in the city’s next generation early.
With the backing of the city, and the state, which just passed funding specifically dedicated to CVI, programs like Detroit Keepers are expected to grow. The state has allocated $10 million in this year’s budget for youth violence prevention programs in schools — an outgrowth of a larger push for cities across the state and nation to fund CVI programs to address violence.
Three days a week, violence interrupters at Force Detroit meet with a group of students at Cody they’ve identified as leaders during lunch periods and teach them how to be “junior violence interrupters” and deescalate conflicts in real life – ones that are relatable to them. And as leaders, they are taught how to step up to help give their communities what they need, like food assistance for struggling families in their neighborhoods or job opportunities.
Larry Stanley , 36, digital violence interrupter with Force Detroit, prays with students inside Cody High School in Detroit on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.
DAVID RODRIGUEZ MUNOZ, DETROIT FREE PRESS
At the same time, all are welcome and any student can meet up with violence interrupters. The boys play basketball during lunch period. The girls have a roundtable called “Girls Talk.”
“That’s their time to isolate one of our VIs (violence interrupters) and tell them what’s been going on. If they need some special one-on-one attention, if they have problems at home, or even if they have problems in the school,” Stanley Turner II, lead violence interrupter at Force Detroit, said inside Cody’s gym.
Around him, over a dozen teenage boys were blowing off steam during a game of pick-up and calling out to one another as “brother.”
“It gives the kids, really, two hours to target us,” Turner, 38, said.
Force Detroit isn’t the only CVI group infiltrating the schools, although their Detroit Keepers is unique in its frequency and in the way it’s structured as an embedded school program.
Every Tuesday, for instance, the CVI group Team Pursuit talks with students at Denby High School on the east side – right next to the park where just this summer, a 4-year-old and an 18-year-old were gunned down and killed, and another teen injured, over beef about a ski mask.
Detroit Friends and Family, another CVI group, also has a consistent presence in the city’s east side schools.
The city has largely credited what they’ve described as a “historic” dropin violent crime in part to the work of CVI groups within its “ShotStoppers” program, which launched in 2023 with the goal of decreasing violent crime by funding the organizations already doing the preventative work.Still, Detroit leaders have grappled with how to prevent bloodshed among youth. This summer was particularly violent for young Detroiters − by July, Detroit police said there were 33% more juvenile victims of gun violence compared with the same time last year, and 18% more juveniles 17 years old and under had been caught with guns.
The city cracked down with curfews by treating reports of minors out past curfew during the summer as a top priority for police response, an increased police presence throughout the night by approving overtime and heftier fees for parents whose children are caught violating curfew − a move that prompted debate and differing opinions, including among Detroit’s mayoral candidates ahead of the Nov. 4 election.CVI leaders say meeting youth where they are at is what works best — like violence preventative programs in schools, where they can build relationships with students, earn their trust, and provide guidance and mentorship. But CVI groups have long cried for more funding to do the work.
When state lawmakers recently approved a budget plan in October that includes $10 million for school districts to implement youth violence prevention plans, CVI organizations in Detroit described the move as a step in the right direction.
The budget also includes funds allocated for CVI grants and $60 million for local governments to spend on public safety, although the bulk of it is required to be spent on supporting law enforcement.
Detroit’s share is a little over $10 million, according to John Roach, a spokesperson for the city. The legislation capped the amount that can be spent towards CVI at 25%, “and we are using the maximum,” he said — which amounts to $2.6 million towards CVI in Detroit.
An officer walks next to a student inside Cody High School in Detroit on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.
DAVID RODRIGUEZ MUNOZ, DETROIT FREE PRESS
State funding will keep the ShotStoppers program running for a third year, said Mike Peterson, the program’s administrator. But Peterson’s got his eyes set on a more sustainable future, like codifying an office of CVI under the city of Detroit’s government so the work is actually embedded in the city’s infrastructure.
“When you do have that level of sustainability, you have groups like Force Detroit and others that have recognized that it’s not enough for just us to do this work. We need to start looking at who the next generation of leaders will be,” Peterson said.
“It’s almost the same mentality of how gang members try to bring in and recruit early for wrong. You can do the same thing for good, and I think our groups are recognizing that.”
There’s currently seven organizations that receive funding through the city’s ShotStopper program, including Force Detroit. With state funding coming in, Peterson, the program’s administrator, said the city has put out requests for proposals to expand its reach throughout the city. Peterson said three of the CVI groups in the ShotStopper program submitted proposals to expand their current boundaries.
“This will allow us to just take on more, but this is just the expansion of the program,” Peterson said. “Our goal is to be able to take it from being just the current program — that we’re very happy with and proud of — but hopefully being able to expand it to an actual office of community violence intervention.”
‘The love for your community’
A Free Press reporter and photographer were in a Detroit Keepers leadership class on an October afternoon. When Mitchell asked the group “what is CVI?” Quran Haten-Harper, 17 — the student body president and a captain on the varsity football team — had to come correct.
“I gotta get my diamonds showing,” he said as he pulled out a thick chain from under his shirt.
Quran Haten-Harper, 17, left, and Marcus Ward, 16, lead media members for the Leadership Student Program at Cody High School, sit on stage during a … Show more
DAVID RODRIGUEZ MUNOZ, DETROIT FREE PRESS
His answer — basically, being a positive force in a community — impressed Mitchell.
“That’s a good answer,” she said. “Damn.”
Other students chimed in, too. They talked about fundraisers and food drives in response to the recent government shutdown that paused food stamps and left families across the country battling hunger. Job fairs, clothing drives and education were thrown out as examples of CVI work.
Mitchell wants the students to know that anyone can be a violence interrupter. It’s about “the love for your community, right?” Mitchell said.
She pressed the students on how to organize help in their communities. Food and clothing drives and job fairs sound great, she said, but asked what if someone doesn’t have transportation? What would they do then?
And Turner pushed even further, asking the students to think long term. That means self-sustaining practices, like producing their own food, starting their own garden and farms.
“In order to take a weapon out of somebody’s hand, you got to replace it,” he said.
That’s where violence interrupters come in, he said — that includes the students.
When they’re together, Mitchell teaches them conflict resolution, mediation, and intervention. They’re taught how to regulate their emotions: “Seven seconds of emotions can ruin your whole life,” Mitchell said.
And they’ll act out mock conflicts that are relatable to them — “Youth, they have a whole different language today” — and she’ll ask them how they’d handle the situation.
In one scenario, two female students in the Detroit Keepers program acted out a fight over a boy. Mitchell said one of the actors was really getting into it. Now laughing as she told the story, she said she told to the girl, “You must have did this before.”
The student’s response was to separate the two girls, to calm them down, and then later to bring them together to facilitate a mediation between the two.
If the students intervene in a conflict in real life, Mitchell asks them to log it. She wants to know that they are understanding the skills she’s teaching.
Two Detroit Keepers logged a similar situation during a school football game this season. It was crowded, loud and two girls were going at each other. Escalation was likely — until students Zariah England, 16, and Jayden Hale, 17 sprung to action.
England separated one of the girls, Hale the other. They calmed the girls down, reminded them that whatever they are fighting about is not worth the trouble they’d be in.
“At the end, everybody went home safe. Safe and sound,” England said. “I’m not going to lie, I feel special. I did something … and I stopped something that could have been way worse.”
Hale felt similarly.
“It was actually pretty cool,” he said. “Because usually I would just be looking, go the other way. But I actually intervened this time.”
Later that week, Mitchell facilitated a mediation between the two girls at the football game and addressed the problem they had with each other.
“It turns out they didn’t even have one,” Mitchell said, it was just the outside noise that got in the way.
‘We believe in y’all’
Force Detroit launched Detroit Keepers at the end of last school year. Since then, “we’ve seen a lot of transformation,” Turner said. As for Mitchell, “I see deeper .. they have something deeper inside of them,” she said of the Detroit Keepers.
Progress doesn’t come easily, though. Turner said it takes a lot of consistency and patience. But seeing the impact they’ve had on the students, and fostering relationships built on mutual respect makes all of it worth it, he said.
Valerie Mitchell, 35, youth organizer with Force Detroit, speaks with students inside Cody High School in Detroit on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. Mitchell works with … Show more
DAVID RODRIGUEZ MUNOZ, DETROIT FREE PRESS
“Meeting the students where they are, not coming so much as an authoritative figure, but just being real and relating to them, is the best way to really build that relationship with them. Once you have the relationship, then you have the power to enhance and modify their behavior,” Turner said.
The respect students have for the Force Detroit violence interrupters can be seen just walking down the hallway. That October afternoon, Turner was giving out handshakes, fist bumps and hugs to several students.
“’How come every time I say I need to talk to you, you disappear?’” he joked with a student he knows from a summer program.
That respect is shown back to the students. During the leadership class, both Turner and Mitchell made sure to make that clear.
“Just know we here for y’all. We appreciate y’all. We appreciate y’all letting us be in y’all life. And we appreciate that y’all trying to make a change in your community — That’s the biggest thing,” Mitchell said.
Turner chimed in. “We expect y’all to take charge … We love y’all. We believe in y’all.”
But enough of that. “Now you can go eat,” Mitchell said.
Staff writer Clara Hendrickson contributed to this report.
Andrea Sahouri covers criminal justice for the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at asahouri@freepress.com.
