Office for Victims of Crime logo National Crime Victims' Rights Week: April 23-29, 2006 Victims' Rights: Strength in Unity
Photo of hands holding candles aloft in commemoration of National Crime Victims' Rights Week events.
National Crime Victims' Rights Week 2006
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[Graphical descriptions appear in brackets. Throughout the video montage, voiceovers of multiple individuals are heard while a collage of photographs, documents, and newspaper clippings dissolve in and out of the screen on the patches of a quilt. Photos show portraits of individual speakers, their loved ones and victims, a wrecked car, migrant workers, an African American man in a wheelchair, portraits of domestic violence victims, a woman holding a candle at a vigil, a Latino group for POMC, and John Walsh at a long table with microphones and other advocates.]

[Opening: National Crime Victims' Rights Week 2006 appears superimposed on a quilt.]

Victims' Rights: Strength in Unity

Amanda Lacey: I was on my way home and a drunk driver pulled out of a bar and hit me head on.

Dawana Freeman: He pulls his gun out of his pocket and he's like, "Don't run, don't move."

Donna Hurst: My ex-husband was very angry with me, and he took his right fist and he punched across the left side of my face.

Eric Fischer: I think a lot of times victims of crimes feel that they're alone.

Jeanne Lewis: When you say the word "murder"—like "my child was murdered"—you can sometimes see an actual physical withdrawal on the part of the listener. [A series of photos appear on the screen; in order are portraits of Jean Lewis's son; Glynn Birch's son; and Mark Lunsford's daughter Jesse, in front of a Christmas tree.]

Anne Seymour: The greatest challenge was—absolutely—societal attitudes about crime and victimization. [Newspaper clippings appear on the screen. Clipping headlines read: Society Must Realize That the Disabled Are Abused, Too; Elderly; and Victimized again.]

Donna Hurst: I went to counseling. The first counselor I went to asked me, "Well, why do you think you want to be abused?"

Judge Lois Haight: People blamed them, ignored them—although, I think the blame was the worst. [Photo appears on screen of a banner from a march that reads, "No Mas Violencia Domestica."]

Judge Lois Haight: We put the responsibility for crime on the persons who suffered it, not the persons who did it.

Rob Smith: When we did the first interview with our, uh, prosecutor he told my wife that she was going to cost the state a lot of money and I felt like he had victimized my wife all over again. [Newspaper clipping appears on the screen. Clipping reads: You've Been Raped, Why Bother Reporting It?"

Roberta Roper: There were no. no rights for crime victims in our state. There were no services—we were told that—we were literally on our own. [Newspaper clippings appear on screen. Clippings read: Families seek rights for victims; and Victims of crime want rights.]

Anne Seymour: When you had 2 and 3 and 5 and 20, and then hundreds of victims speaking out about their need for rights and quality services, our society as a whole started paying attention. [Video of Korean parade for KAFSC (Family Service Center) plays on screen.]

Anne Seymour: These are the seams that tie our field together. [Newspaper clipping appears on screen. Clipping reads: Keeping their light shining.]

Mark Lunsford: It hurts every time I tell the story, and I mean. and I mean it hurts for me to relive that, but if I can talk to people, at least one person will try to make a change and that's why I do it. [Video of Mark holding a Jessica T-shirt plays on screen.] [Newspaper clippings appear on screen. Clippings read: Dad turns despair into activism; and Private pain, public action.]

[Title appears on a patch of the quilt, reads: Victims' Rights: Strength in Unity.]

[End of video clip.]

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