Maryland Citizens Against State Executions

Presented by: Bonnita Spikes, Maryland Citizens Against State Executions, Mt. Rainier, MD

To: Maryland State Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee

March 2, 2010

In loving memory of Michael Spikes

I am Bonnita Spikes.  I serve as a community organizer with Maryland Citizens Against State Executions.  I am a survivor of a homicide victim – my husband, Michael Spikes.  Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today in support of SB 820 and in support of uniform, statewide training of law enforcement to better inform all Maryland crime victims of their rights and available services.

Next week, on March 10, 2010, marks the 16th anniversary since my husband, Michael Spikes, was shot and killed in a convenience store robbery.   He was one of two people shot and killed that day while others were injured.  

Mike and I were married for 23 years.  We were very happy with our family of four sons and had a middle-class life.   Michael was a wonderful husband and father.  We took family vacations, and together were very active in our children’s lives.   My late husband has missed many graduations and will never see or hold any of our nine grandchildren.

The police never found the persons who killed Mike.  Our then 13-year-old son, Michael, was so devastated he tried to commit suicide and was hospitalized over the next three years with depression, and still struggles with it today.  I was given little or no information as to where to find help for my son and had to go to extraordinary lengths, even spending a whole day waiting in a judge’s chambers, to get him the treatment he needed.

My work with Maryland CASE has involved much contact with other murder victims’ family members.  Over the last four years, I have come to know dozens of Marylanders who, like me, have lived through murder in the family.  I have found among us strong, wonderful people who have filled me with a sense of grace and gratitude.  But I have found more murder victims’ family members who are struggling, alone, with few places to turn for help.

Families devastated by murder come from some of the poorest communities in our state.  Let us be clear, murder victims in our state tend to be poor and young.  Every year, at least 75% of all homicide victims in Maryland are black and half of those fall in Baltimore City.  My heart has been broken by mothers in Baltimore City who have lost children.  One such mother, who lost two sons to murder, could tell me what number murder her son’s was in Baltimore that year, but had not been informed about any services she had a right to as the survivor of her slain son.  Based on my personal experience, too many murder victims' families, from Maryland's poorest communities in particular, are NOT accessing the services they need to cope and survive.  Too, too often, poor families don't even know what help is available.  

I certainly know family members who have found counseling and other support they need via their State's Attorney's Office, though such resources have been cut or strained in the current economy.   

But in so many murders, no one is ever arrested.  (We don't really know how many murders in Maryland have gone unsolved, like my husband Mike’s.  States don't tend to keep such data.)  For such families where no one is prosecuted for their loved one's murder, the family’s needs never get the attention of an already overburdened State’s Attorney’s office.  Hence, the police are often the only official contact that family will ever have.  A trained, knowledgeable police officer then can make all the difference to a family devastated by murder, particularly families without the financial means to access private legal and mental health services.  

Clearly, there are some (not enough, but some) services for survivors of homicide available from private, non-profit organizations in our state.  But access to these services is random and even serendipitous.  Resourcing police officers with knowledge of public and private programs and services is essential to spreading the word, again particularly in poor communities.  Further, as the mother of a police officer, I know how stressful a job it is.  Entry level and periodic training of officers in our state would equip them with constructive information to share, which would only help ease the secondary trauma that officers can experience in doing their job of informing families that the worst thing imaginable has happened.

Maryland has already mandated the type of training proposed in SB 820 for victims of sexual assault.  It is time for our state to require the same, uniform standard for all victims.  Indeed, it may be the victims who have lost family members to murder that have the most to benefit from the legislation.  Mr. Chairman, members of this Committee, I urge you to take an important step forward for survivors of homicide victims and to pass SB 820.