Muskegon County Prosecutor pays tribute to Victims of Crime

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By Diana L. Coleman

Legal News

 

The 2011 theme for the Crime Victims’ Rights Week is “Reshaping the Future…Honoring the Past,” Muskegon County Prosecutor, Tony Tague, and his Victims’ Services Unit held Muskegon County’s fifth annual Crime Victims’ Rights vigil in front of the police memorial on the front lawn of the Hall of Justice.

Amy Anderson, Supervisor of the Victim Services Unit, welcomed all to the ceremonies and paid tribute to the many heroes in the audience including law enforcement officers, child abuse counselors, and representatives from the prosecutor’s office that work closely with victims of crime. “There are also many angels among us,” said Anderson. “They not only walk among us every day to care for and protect us, but I know and believe that there are many angels above us protecting us as well.”

Anderson introduced the Philadelphia Baptist Church Youth Choir who began the ceremonies by singing Angels Among Us. This youth choir has sung at all five annual ceremonies, opening with the song that pays tribute to those angels Anderson senses.

Tague thanked everyone for attending the annual ceremony and for paying tribute to victims of crime. His statement in the program said: “Each year we renew our dedication to the victims of crime because it was only a short time ago in the mid-1980s that the rights of victims were recognized as a fundamental right under Michigan Law. In 1989, Prosecutor Tague shined a bright light on the rights and needs of local victims by adopting one of the first victim services units in the state. Since then, hundreds of thousands have benefited from the advocacy and specialized services delivered day in and day out by prosecutors’ offices across the state.

“In the last year, over 3500 local victims received restitution, financial compensation, and other help and services with the assistance of the prosecutor’s office. It is a privilege to be at the forefront of this important mission to help those who have been victimized by crime, and, today, we publicly bow our heads to honor and remember each and every one of them.”

Tague introduced Timothy M. Maat, Senior Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, who was the guest speaker for the ceremonies. Maat told a story of a violent crime and the victims of that crime. Maat has granted permission for that story to be printed in the Muskegon County Legal News.

It is a great honor and a humbling experience to be with you today. I want to thank and acknowledge the tireless work and dedication of Amy Anderson and the victim-witness unit.

And even though I know I may be accused of pandering by saying this, I want to acknowledge my bosses, Tony Tague and Brett Gardner, for their leadership, integrity and mentoring. I specifically want to thank them for teaching us assistant prosecutors that the best way to do our job is to always ask the question, how would I handle this case if the victim was my child or sibling or parent, and they act accordingly.

I also want to acknowledge our distinguished guests: The victims and their families, who have lost so much at the hands of another. I am reminded often that when I walk into the courtroom, the most important person is definitely not me, and it is not the other lawyers, or the defendant and its not even the judge—often times the most important person to a case is not even in the room—it is the victim and their loved ones.

Instead of a speech, I wasn’t to share with you one story as a tribute to all victims and their families. This story is no more or less important than the thousands like it. And, for many of you, the loss you suffered far exceeds this. But I hope my remarks will serve as a reminder of how much we owe the victims of crime and how appropriate it is to honor them.

The victims in this story are a husband and wife. Very earlier in their marriage, this couple felt a calling to open their home to children who had been abused and neglected. With children of their own, the couple’s decision to take on neglected and abused children seemed to many others to be foolish. This couple was warned that children who had been abused and neglected often came with serious problems themselves and could pose a risk to their own children. Once this couple became foster-parents they quickly learned that the greatest need was for teenagers that had no place to call home. Often times the abuse and neglect that these young people endured for years was now fueling their own drug addictions, criminal activity and acting out behaviors. But this couple knew that as foster-parents they could help save these kids. Time and time again, young people who everyone else had given up on, were welcomed into this couple’s home and given a safe place to live where they were loved, nurtured and encouraged. As this couple’s own family grew to four children, their doors and hearts remained open to kids that desperately needed a home. All total, this couple welcomed more than 150 kids who needed a family.

Over the years, this couple raised their own four boys, adopted a little girl and continued to provide a home for those that needed it. Even after their own children had become adults, this husband and wife team continued to take in troubled teens. There had been so many changed lives and permanent relationships formed between this couple and the children they served. Many of the children looked upon this couple as their own Mom and Dad.

Of course the story does not end here, as it should. On a late September night, two teenage boys, who had lived with this couple for over a year, plotted an event that change everything. Shortly after midnight these two teens, armed with knives, entered the couple’s bedroom while they slept. Each boy took a side of the bed and started screaming profanity laced demands that the husband and wife get up. The one boy screamed at the other to stab the husband now. The husband struggled with the teen who had a foot long knife held up against the husband’s neck. The husband desperately tried to disarm the first boy and the second teen, with this own knife joined in on the attack against the husband. As the husband now struggled with the two attackers he yelled to his wife to flee. She ran outdoors in her nightgown and called the police on the phone she grabbed on the way out. The wife hid outside until the police came.

When the police arrived, the husband was missing, but blood was found throughout the home and a single butcher knife was found laying outside the bedroom

For the next three hours a frantic search for the husband occurred. The couple’s children were called to the home and joined in the search. Unknown to the wife and children, the husband’s fight with the two boys had continued outdoors. With one boy still armed with a knife, the other boy grabbed a metal shovel from the garage and attacked the husband from behind, smashing his head repeatedly until he lay motionless in a pool of his own blood.

The husband was left for dead by the two teens who then fled taking the family car and wife’s jewelry. After three hours of laying in his own blood and vomit the husband regained enough consciousness to stumble back into the home, to a relieved wife and grateful children. Their desperate prayers had been answered. The husband was brought to the local hospital and flown to Grand Rapids, where he remained in critical condition.

But the story does not end there. After weeks in the hospital and re-learning how to walk, the husband returned home and this couple once again opened their home to abused and neglected children. Their own children protested greatly, pleading with their parents to retire and enjoy the time with their grandchildren and let someone else take on the burden. But to know this couple, is to know that they were called to serve by Gad, and that has not changed.

If you were to speak with this couple today, they would accept no praise, and would deny being the heroes they most certainly are. Instead, I know for certain, that they would offer all their praise and glory to the God they serve and who has been faithful to them and their children.

I know this, because this husband and wife are my parents and they are here today. Mom and Dad, thank you. Thank you for your service, your example and your sacrifices. And I know you join me in saying, “In all things to God by the glory.”

In a voice choked with emotion, Prosecutor Maat lovingly introduced his parents who were sitting in the audience. There were not many dry eyes as people listened to all these fine individuals had endured. His love for them and pride in their ability to persevere and continue was evident by the look on his face as he presented them to the audience.

The ceremonies closed with the youth choir singing, We Are the World. The choir passed the microphone among its members as they sang verses of the song. The voices were all wonderful, but the sweetest voice of all was that of a tiny little girl in the front row of the choir who sang with a voice as sweet and clear as the angels themselves.

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