MOULTRIE — Tuesday at the courthouse annex a crowd of about 50 gathered to bring attention to victims’ rights. Of the 23 million crime victims created each year in the U.S., 5.2 million are victims of violent crimes. New ones are created locally almost every day.

“I remember crying out for help,” said the Rev. Ron Shiver, pastor of Funston Baptist Church, to those assembled at the courthouse annex.

Last September, Shiver came across a burglar in his Funston home. He tackled the intruder and wound up falling out a window with him. The offender ran off and was chased down later by law enforcement. But Shiver fell on his head, he said, and was paralyzed from his shoulders down.

Shiver at that time was immobilized. The severe effects eventually proved to be temporary, but the memory of that day lingers still. He remembers agonizing as passers-by kept on passing by and staring helplessly at his cell phone, fallen just inches from his face.

He thought, ‘Why me?,’ but immediately after, he said, he thought ‘Why not me?’

“We live in America, but we live with risk. Not a one of us is immune to that or deserving of any less liberties or happiness than anybody else,” he told the group.

Luckily, before Shiver fell out the window, he had managed to dial 911. Shiver remembers the silence before finally, joyfully hearing the sirens and then the voices of first responders.

The 15-year-old offender eventually was convicted of burglary in juvenile court and now is serving a four-year sentence in a state facility.

Another silence — the silence of consequence — settled over Shiver after he went home from the hospital uncertain at that time whether he’d be the same again.

“We have been victimized, but we don’t have to remain victims,” he said. “We are one nation under God, and under God there is power of forgiveness.”

From a pit of despair can rise a platform for advocacy, he said.

One person who is climbing out that pit is Joanne Weston, mother of December 2007 murder victim Vickie Ann McBurrows. She’s now raising McBurrows’ six children after McBurrows’ former boyfriend shot her in the back of the head. The children were present during the murder.

The shooter, Xavier Barber, recently pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment, which under new parole rules makes him eligible for parole after a full 30 years in prison. He and McBurrows, 31, had a child together.

“I don’t know what I would have done if he would have got like seven and got out,” Weston said. “I don’t believe in capital punishment, but I want him to stay locked up for a long time. This way the baby would be 33 years old if he does get out.”

Weston said Colquitt County Victim Advocate Karen Ambrose guided her through this darkest of times. Ambrose was not only a sympathetic ear but helped her through the court process, helped her secure funds from the state, set up counseling for the children and calmed the children who were frightened that Barber would get out and come after them, she said.