Standing up for victims

Lori Glenn

April 15, 2008 09:45 pm

— 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.
“She is a special lady. She really is,” she said of Ambrose.
Weston never thought about leaving Moultrie, her hometown, but these days she has to think twice when someone asks, she said.
“I thought Moultrie was safe. Might as well be in New York or wherever,” she said.
Shawanda Shealey and her little girl, 3-year-old Jaaden Walker, wore T-shirts to the ceremony in memory of two people now lost to the community. Shealey was friends with Jakira Strong, 21, shot in the head New Year’s Eve in northwest Moultrie, and Cegi Hall, 31, murdered in 2005 in a crowd of people at a popular after-hours spot.
Strong’s future was bright, she said. At age 21, he was majoring in business and had decided to go on to mortuary school and eventually work for his uncle, County Commissioner Luke Strong. Hall was a mother of five and a solid, contributing team member of Communities in Schools.
“It seems to me the same as the first day — starting all over again. I try to accept that he’s not going to be here anymore. ... I think he would want us to be strong for the simple reason he was a strong person. At the same time, he would know it would be hard, because he was an outgoing person and a lot of people are going to miss him for the things he did and the lives he touched,” she said. “It was like the first day. I started crying.”
Curtis Anthony Aldridge was charged with murder in the Strong case, and five other defendants were charged along with him for tampering with evidence. They allegedly tried to clean up the scene, police have said.
For all of his plans, Strong’s life was taken away senselessly, Shealey said, and too many people in this community are numb to crime and its fallout, especially on children.
“It’s my friend today, but tomorrow it could be your friend,” she said. “You never know whose family will be next. The crime rate is so high. To me, it’s so easy for someone to take a person’s life.”
In Hall’s case, Mack Trimble Jr. was sentenced to life plus 10 years for felony murder and associated charges.
“He took her away from her five kids. They gave him a chance to go back for another trial. That’s not fair. It’s like putting the family back there all over again, and that’s not right,” she said.
Earlier, a prosecutor and a lawman speaking in a small group were voicing their frustration regarding the difficulty in finding witnesses who will testify, especially in cases of murder. So many times, murder cases are built primarily on witness testimony. Shealey agreed. She said she was frustrated that witnesses to killings don’t come forward. During Trimble’s trial, relatively few witnesses testified, she said.
“I would take my chance at revenge than to let someone who doesn’t care about no one — because if you take somebody’s life, you don’t care — walk or get out on the street to take somebody else’s life,” she said.
Moultrie Technical College criminal justice students assisted the district attorney’s victim advocacy program in the organization of the event.

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