PORTLAND, Maine — By coincidence, the six-month anniversary of the Oct. 25 Lewiston mass shooting fell in the middle of National Crime Victims' Rights Week.
The Department of Justice created the national awareness week in 1981 "to bring greater sensitivity to the needs and rights of victims of crime," the department's website reads.
Advocates hosted an event Thursday in Portland. Cumberland County District Attorney Jacqueline Sartoris, Mayor Mark Dion, and Police Chief Mark Dubois joined the gathering at Lincoln Park, flanked by nonprofits tabling and giving information, a small crowd who came to listen, and Suna Shaw and Joanna Stokinger.
Shaw is the victim-witness advocate for Portland police. She also won "Civilian of the Year" for the department in 2023.
After the shootings in Lewiston, Shaw worked with victims and their families, supporting them through Maine's darkest day, and likely the worst days of their own lives.
"I work with folks, educating them on the criminal justice system; supporting them," Shaw explained. "Sometimes that looks like planning a funeral with them and attending that funeral if that's what they want."
Rights, and advocacy, extend to victims of all crimes, not only violent ones. But Joanna Stokinger knows the harshest. She said she was an advocate for years and then lost her grandson to homicide, adding a new perspective as she continued her work, including with victims in Lewiston alongside Shaw.
This year's national theme is, "How would you help?"
"It's OK to ask survivors, 'How can I be of help to you,'" Stokinger explained. "Not just, 'Reach out to me when you need me,' because people aren't always cognizant of what they need. But just keep reaching out, unless they tell you, 'What I need is for you not to reach out.'"
The attorney general's office planned to host an annual event on Friday—private and open only to advocates.