On Saturday, at the behest of Metro Mayor Greg Fischer, the first meeting of the Voices of the Survivors Committee was held at Louisville Metro City Hall. In an effort to make Louisville a more compassionate city, the committee is designed to be the mayors call to action to find ways to assist with the people left when a life is taken by homicide.
The brainstorming has already begun. For example, WGZB’s Mark Gunn, a committee member, suggested putting together a network of grief councilors who can help with the tremendous emotional burden faced by the survivors.
Jefferson County Coroner Dr. Barbara Weakly-Jones, the committee chair put together a draft of a pamphlet that puts information resources all in one place that survivors might need. Currently, that information is scattered in a number of places.
Survivors make up half the committee and there are those, like Terri Tharp, who lost her son Antonio. She says there is “no closure.” Christopher 2X of the Fight Crimes Against Children partnership says, however, that people of good will can “add little band-aids.” In the interest of full disclosure, I serve on the committee in my radio persona of Tim Gerard from WMJM.
The committee will meet again in July.
How do we get help from this group?