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| A Mother Had Three Minutes to Address Her Son’s Killer | A Mother Had Three Minutes to Address Her Son’s Killer |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| The night before Adriana Vance addressed her son’s killer in a Colorado courtroom, she was still searching for the right words. | The night before Adriana Vance addressed her son’s killer in a Colorado courtroom, she was still searching for the right words. |
| She had spent days struggling to write a statement about her son Raymond Green Vance, 22, one of the five people killed last November in a shooting rampage at Club Q in Colorado Springs. She wanted to say how sweet and easygoing he had been. How Raymond’s little brother had dangled off his hulking 6-foot-4 frame as if it were a jungle gym. How at the funeral, Raymond’s friends had not wanted to let go of his coffin. How Ms. Vance felt as though there was no justice. | She had spent days struggling to write a statement about her son Raymond Green Vance, 22, one of the five people killed last November in a shooting rampage at Club Q in Colorado Springs. She wanted to say how sweet and easygoing he had been. How Raymond’s little brother had dangled off his hulking 6-foot-4 frame as if it were a jungle gym. How at the funeral, Raymond’s friends had not wanted to let go of his coffin. How Ms. Vance felt as though there was no justice. |
| “I have to say something,” she said on Sunday night. “I just — right now, I don’t know what.” | “I have to say something,” she said on Sunday night. “I just — right now, I don’t know what.” |
| Every day, in courtrooms across the country, victims of violence stand up, turn to face the accused, and express life-altering anguish and loss. These victim impact statements are meant to give grieving families and survivors their moment in court before sentencing. And the latest era of mass shootings has brought new resonance to this ritual of the American justice system. | Every day, in courtrooms across the country, victims of violence stand up, turn to face the accused, and express life-altering anguish and loss. These victim impact statements are meant to give grieving families and survivors their moment in court before sentencing. And the latest era of mass shootings has brought new resonance to this ritual of the American justice system. |
| Because most mass shooters do not live to see a trial, there is often no such moment after their attacks. But when the killer survives — as with the attacks at Club Q, at a high school in Parkland, Fla., and at a synagogue in Pittsburgh — the question of whether to speak and what to say can be particularly fraught. Should those minutes be spent focusing on lost loved ones, or condemning the killer, or even offering forgiveness, as families did after a racist massacre inside a Charleston church? | |
| The courtroom is often filled with reporters and cameras, and victims say they feel the burden of speaking not just for themselves and the memory of their loved ones, but also for others whose lives have been torn apart by mass shootings. |