Community event to support crime victims

This week kicks off National Crime Victims’ Rights Awareness Week. Today in Pascagoula, crime victims and residents came together to make the community safer.

Pascagoula resident Jackie Davis said, “I feel that this event is important because it lets the victims know that they are not alone and have not been forgotten.”

For Jackie Davis this victims’ rights community event means a great deal. As a victim of a gunshot wound ten years ago, some of the resources present at this fair helped him recover mentally and physically. “I come out to support the other victims who have been victimized behind me to let them know that there is still hope where they can move forward with their lives.”

The District Attorney’s Office for Jackson, George, and Green Counties put on this event, but the resources spread farther than that. District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said, “It is our responsibility to protect our crime victims. One of the ways that we protect them is to help people not become crime victims. So, we owe it to our community to do everything we can to make it safe to make sure they know what resources are out there and to tie them with those resources and for them to know what this office is committed to doing which is keeping it safe.”

Those resources were plentiful like opportunities with addiction recovery, victim survivor groups, health groups, and of course, law enforcement. Pascagoula Police Captain Doug Adams said, “We are just here to help and you see that it’s not just law enforcement. It’s the medical community, volunteers, nonprofits. There is something here that can help everybody that has an issue.”

Their main goal is to make sure crime victims are not alone and that the community comes together to reduce crime.