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VCU Police Chief John Venuti addresses the gathering. At his left is the “River of Tears” memorial statue, sculpted by Donald Earley in 1996 on behalf of the Coalition Against Urban Violence led by Linda Jordan, who lost her son to violence six years earlier. The statue, a permanent memorial to victims of violence, is installed at City Hall in Downtown and is a centerpiece of the annual remembrance vigil the coalition holds for families of victims.
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Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham was also among the speakers at the event.
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Photos of those lost to violence
In solemn contrast to the commotion of cars and crowds downtown, a gathering of roughly 100 sat inside City Hall on Thursday evening for the 27th annual memorial service for friends and family of homicide victims, hosted by the Coalition Against Violence and the Richmond Victim-Witness Assistance Program.
Juxtaposed with a festive display of holiday lights and poinsettias, members of the audience sported T-shirts with names and pictures of loved ones lost this year. One group draped a blanket over the glass railing with a woven image of a smiling couple and a brief note: “RIP my two angels.”
A backdrop for the gathering was a glass wall inscribed with the city’s various neighborhoods: Mosby, Gilpin, Barton Heights — a stoic reminder that homicide is, in some ways, an equal-opportunity evil.
Underscoring the gravity of the evening was news of two more victims in two days — both men in their 20s who were gunned down, one of them killed that morning.
“As of today, 60 people have lost their lives, and we all know that's 60 people too many: fathers, mothers, sons and daughters,” Mayor Levar Stoney said in the gathering’s keynote speech. “We remember them today, we grieve them and we pray for them.” (The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported the total as 63, with three of the cases being investigated by Virginia State Police.)
Joining Stoney in addressing the audience were VCU Police Chief John Venuti (a former homicide detective with the Richmond Police Department) and Richmond Police Chief Alfred Durham. Also present were roughly a dozen Richmond police officers standing quietly in the back.
Venuti said more resources than ever are being put toward homicide investigations by Stoney and his administration, and that Durham and his department are doing an “admirable job” responding to and suppressing violence.
However, Venuti acknowledged that for the families sitting before him, an insurmountable damage had already been inflicted; that the aftermath of a murder is “often referred to as a grief like no other”; that “murder is clearly the work of the devil.”
As Venuti spoke, Durham, who was seated to the immediate right of the podium, nodded slowly at different points throughout his colleague’s address. When he took the floor, the chief immediately launched into an empathetic testament and plea.
He began by revisiting his own awful realization that his brother, Kenzell, had been murdered in Washington, D.C., in June 2005 — only two months into Durham’s new position as chief of staff to Richmond Police Chief Rodney Monroe. At the time, he was an 18-year veteran of law enforcement, but that did little to prepare him for the grief he would endure.
“We’re survivors, and we must continue to function, to prosper and most of all — continue to flourish,” Durham said. “And sometimes that's a battle, ladies and gentlemen, and you know it. Especially this time of year, around Thanksgiving and Christmas — these holy holidays — and we're mourning. We're remembering.”
The chief’s candor seemed to reverberate, almost palpably, through the chamber. And then came his plea.
“We mend our broken hearts by being amongst our friends, families and loved ones,” he said. “And in assemblies like this, where we share our truths; we share our tears. But something has to change.”
And when Durham launched into his oft-repeated refrains “If you see something, say something,” and “maybe instead of ‘stop snitching’ we need to ‘start snitching,’ ” the audience did not respond with exasperation or eye rolls, as has been the case in other public settings, usually in the aftermath of a homicide.
Instead, audience members nodded emphatically, and greeted his words with “Yes, sir” and “Amen.”
By the time Durham was speaking at the podium, he had been working for more than 12 hours. He shared with the group how that morning around 5 a.m., he and his detectives were on the scene of a homicide, followed a few hours later by a confrontation in which a suspect in a separate shooting fired at a Richmond police officer, who returned fire, injuring the man.
“Somebody decided to ‘snitch’ and that’s how we were able to get behind the vehicle and get this individual, who committed these heinous acts against society, against family members, against us,” Durham said, adding that maybe a “renewing of the mind” was in order for citizens to start helping him and his officers put the pieces together in solving cases and suppressing violence.
Stoney also acknowledged the toll it takes on him to wake up to a phone call or text informing him of another life taken too soon, admitting there is “no harder, or worse,” part of his job as mayor.
“Our city, and indeed our nation, needs to celebrate more birthdays and fewer funerals,” Stoney said. “We need to celebrate more graduates than hear eulogies at funerals. But we also need more help from our state lawmakers, who for years failed to stand up to the gun lobby.”
This legislative session, Stoney and Durham have collaborated to craft proposals aimed at getting guns off the streets. Durham has already championed initiatives such as “Gun 250,” where tipsters can receive a cash reward for turning over illegal firearms.
Items on the upcoming agenda include “one gun a month” legislation — which was repealed during Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell’s administration — and a measure requiring gun owners to report a firearm lost or stolen.
Another consistent shortcoming for Durham’s department is understaffing and overworked detectives, he said during an earlier interview in December. Although the chief did not explicitly mention this during the vigil service, he did pledge his own and his department’s commitment to bringing families closure.
“For those cases we haven’t closed yet, we haven't given up — and I don't want you to give up on it either,” he said. “We're going to work tirelessly until we bring closure to you. And there will never be full closure, as you know, but getting someone held accountable. That's the first step.”
