Crime victims’ families rally in Riverside

More than 1,500 people marched Thursday through Riverside, carrying poster-sized photographs of relatives lost to violent crimes, and rallied for tougher penalties for California’s offenders.

Speaking from the steps of the Riverside County Courthouse, Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown blamed some of the failures on the state’s correctional system, saying they’ve become “colleges of crime” for felons. His comments came the day state lawmakers passed a prison reform package -- to address overcrowding -- that could stave off the possibility that some felons will be released early.

“Every picture of every person who is a victim of homicide -- that’s a failure ... in the system,” Brown said to families of victims stretched in all directions across the courthouse lawn.

“It’s always been amazing to me that so much of the crime is being done by criminals who’ve been let out of jail and who’ve been let out of prison,” Brown said. “People come out even worse than before they go in. So we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

Mike Ryan Reynolds, whose sister, Kimber Reynolds, was murdered in 1992 by two felons who were trying to steal her purse, urged the crowd to beat back attempts to weaken the three-strikes law, which extends incarceration for habitual offenders. He also pushed for more awareness about killings -- often by repeat offenders -- that are largely ignored by mainstream media. “We’re fighting a war on our streets that’s just as cruel, just as deadly, and just as brutal, as anything on your television sets,” Reynolds said, alluding to the Iraq war. “We as crime victims are the soldiers who must take that fight to win the all-important political victory.”

Ron Shirley of Riverside was one of the many who heard speeches by Brown, Riverside County Dist. Atty. Rod Pacheco, and half a dozen victims-rights advocates who told heart-wrenching stories of how their loved ones were killed by violent criminals or drunk drivers.

Throughout the program Shirley never lowered a poster bearing the smiling graduation photograph of his 18-year-old son, Todd Jackson, a black honors student who was killed by a white supremacist in the Indian Hills area of Riverside County in 1994 -- the first killing prosecuted as a hate crime in Riverside County, Shirley said.

Shirley said it was important for victims’ families to grieve in solidarity so their relatives would not be forgotten.

“So many times the people that actually get honored in this are the people who do the killing,” Shirley, 51, said.

“Everybody knows Ted Bundy, everybody knows all these people -- even the [gunman] at Virginia Tech. He’ll be remembered, and not one name of those victims will be remembered beyond that event.”

Todd Jackson’s killer, who was sentenced to life without parole, was prosecuted by Pacheco, who organized the victims-rights events this week.

“Their voices must heard,” Pacheco told the crowd. “It is not just about the victims yesterday, it is also about the victims we save tomorrow .... The voices of your loved ones through you, and all of us, can literally save lives.”

Pacheco’s push for maximum sentences for convicted criminals has met resistance in some sectors of Riverside County, in large part because the increasing load of criminal cases overwhelming the courts and causing delays in civil trials.

Pacheco acknowledged that criticism Thursday, noting a state judicial council study that said Riverside County needed more than 40 additional judges to handle it’s caseload.

“That tells you the caseload that we’re laboring under,” Pacheco said. “The solution isn’t to let guilty people back into the community. The solution is to get more judges.”

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maeve.reston@latimes.com