Roslyn Car­ring­ton

The an­guish of los­ing a loved one, es­pe­cial­ly a child, to vi­o­lence is so pro­found and so heart-wrench­ing, that most of us who haven't di­rect­ly ex­pe­ri­enced it are in­ca­pable of imag­in­ing how deep it cuts. And to tell the truth, most of us don't want to. But every day, the head­lines tell us that some­where in this coun­try a moth­er is weep­ing, and an­oth­er fam­i­ly has been torn apart.

Po­lice In­spec­tor Ar­lene Forde is ex­posed to stom­ach-churn­ing vi­o­lence and hate as part of her dai­ly rou­tine, but on Box­ing Day 2012, Death made it per­son­al in the harsh­est way pos­si­ble. Her sis­ter Car­lene's son, An­dre, was shot dead at the age of 26."You know peo­ple are get­ting killed," she says mourn­ful­ly, "but it re­al­ly doesn't reg­is­ter un­til it comes home."Mean­while Car­lene, An­dre's moth­er, is liv­ing a night­mare."I wish it could melt, but it's not go­ing to melt. I wish it could come out of my thoughts, but it's not go­ing to. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts."

The be­wil­der­ment, con­fu­sion and pain of the fol­low­ing weeks prompt­ed Forde to form a new sup­port group for the fam­i­lies, es­pe­cial­ly the par­ents, who have been left be­hind by such cal­lous tragedies. "We would like oth­er peo­ple who have suf­fered the same fate to talk and sup­port each oth­er." The group is still so young–a mere two weeks–it doesn't yet have a name.

Low de­tec­tion rate brings more an­guish

As al­most any sur­viv­ing fam­i­ly will read­i­ly tell you, the pain of their loss is ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the slow pace of po­lice work and the low rate of de­tec­tion that plagues the jus­tice sys­tem. "They are work­ing on it," says In­spec­tor Forde, "but they have to put down yes­ter­day's case to pick up the new ones."

Some­times, days many pass be­fore of­fi­cers vis­it the fam­i­ly home, the right ques­tions may not be asked, and wit­ness­es are sud­den­ly struck by tem­po­rary deaf­ness and blind­ness...un­der­stand­able, in a coun­try where vic­tim in­tim­i­da­tion is the norm. It's al­so way too easy to dis­miss the mur­ders of young men as "gang re­lat­ed", a stig­ma that seems to make the crime less of a pri­or­i­ty in some sec­tors.

An­oth­er goal of the group, there­fore, is to place in­creased pres­sure on in­ves­ti­ga­tors to bring re­sults. And in cas­es where re­sults may be dif­fi­cult, there is hope that the po­lice could be trained to be more sen­si­tive to fam­i­lies, show­ing their con­cern by com­ing to the home, pro­vid­ing fol­low-up, and keep­ing it touch."They need to let peo­ple know they have not be­ing for­got­ten."

Shar­ing in­for­ma­tion, shoul­der­ing bur­dens

Apart from shar­ing tips on cop­ing with the loss, In­spec­tor Forde hopes that mem­bers could ac­cess in­for­ma­tion about their le­gal op­tions. For ex­am­ple, few peo­ple are aware of the Crim­i­nal In­juries Com­pen­sa­tion Act of 1999, which al­lows for the fam­i­lies of vic­tims of vi­o­lent crime to ap­ply to the State for fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion that will help them get back on their feet when, for ex­am­ple, a bread­win­ner is mur­dered. "We'd like to ap­ply en masse, be­cause you on­ly have a year af­ter the in­ci­dent. You need a lot of doc­u­ments to ap­ply, and they may be dif­fi­cult to get."

Need for pro­fes­sion­al sup­port

Ce­cil­ia, who lost her son to a bul­let a year ago, hopes that this new group can help and sup­port each oth­er emo­tion­al­ly, so that their bur­dens can be shared. Pamela, whose son was shot 5 years ago, thinks that peo­ple like her can be a strong shoul­der for the new­ly griev­ing to lean on. "I can of­fer you my sup­port, be­cause when my time came, I didn't get any. If I could just sit with some­one and let them talk, if I could ease their bur­den for a mo­ment, that's good enough for me. Every time we talk, it will open the wound more, but it will al­so help to close it."

But there is al­so a need for pro­fes­sion­al trau­ma and grief ther­a­py. "We'd like to get some psy­chol­o­gists on board, be­cause peo­ple will need coun­selling," says Forde. As the group grows, they hope the mem­ber­ship will in­clude peo­ple to help man­age the com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the pub­lic re­la­tions, and even ba­sics such as an e-mail list and a pos­si­ble Face­book page.

Fam­i­lies of vic­tims urged to join

We live in a coun­try stalked by vi­o­lence and death. The dai­ly blood­bath is be­ing washed away by a flood of tears of the griev­ing, and the time is ripe for a group like this. In­spec­tor Forde and the oth­er men and women who are unit­ed in grief are wait­ing with open arms for any­one will­ing to join, no mat­ter how old or how re­cent their loss.

Per­sons in­ter­est­ed in join­ing the group, or any pro­fes­sion­als who are will­ing to of­fer their ser­vices, can con­tact Ar­lene Forde at 393-0457 or on jr­sar­jeant@hot­mail.com.