14 'Unsung Heroes' From Santa Clara County Earn Much-Deserved Recognition

Fourteen people were deemed “unsung heroes” Thursday at an event in Campbell for their work in helping Santa Clara County crime victims cope through harsh times.

The annual awards ceremony held this afternoon at the Campbell Community Center highlighted 14 representatives from law enforcement agencies and community organizations.

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, the keynote speaker, said he wants his office to focus on programs aiming not just at punishment, but also crime prevention.

He said that he intends to encourage parents who are facing criminal charges to take part in his office’s Parent Project, a 12-week program for parents with at-risk youths and the First 5 Program, focusing on the needs of children ages 5 and under.

“We’re proposing to identify criminal defendants with young children and offer those criminal defendants a reduction of their county jail sentence if they agree to participate in the parent project and/or enroll their children in FIRST 5 programs to get their kids on the right track and reduce criminal behavior in the next generation,” he said.

Within the past year, family justice centers opened in the north and south areas of the county for domestic violence victims, who are linked with a team comprised of a prosecutor, victim or witness advocate and family and immigration attorneys, according to Rosen.

“We want to try to intervene at that moment when we are we are on the one hand, prosecuting their mother or their father for committing the crime but we want to get that child on a different path than their parents and get that child to associate and see themselves more with law enforcement, more civil society than with committing crimes than their parents are,” Rosen said.

He also touched on efforts being made to assign victim advocates to prosecution units much earlier and on a regular basis. Rosen called on law enforcement to feel empathy toward victims in even the more routine aspects of their jobs. A moment of silence was held for fallen San Jose police Officer Michael Johnson, who was shot and killed by a suspect while on duty last month.

The day’s event, hosted by the county’s Victim Support Network, coincides with National Crime Victims’ Rights Week.

Those honored have helped victims of abuse, sexual assault, child pornography and human trafficking in addition to immigrants, families of murder victims and youth in the juvenile justice system.

The 14 honorees were:

• Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Meyer,
• Santa Clara police Chief Mike Sellers,
• Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Carolyn Powell,
• Santa Clara County sheriff’s Detective Kelvin Mah,
• Morgan Hill police Detective Mindy Zen,
• South Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking coordinator Sharan Dhanoa,
• Janet Childs of the Centre for Living and Dying,
• Sherrill Johnson and Bree Van Ness of the YWCA Silicon Valley,
• Dominga Villagomez of the county’s Sexual Assault Response Team,
• Asian Women’s Home legal advocate Cindy Luu,
• the Rev. Paul Bains, founder of the Peninsula Chaplaincy Network,
• and county Probation Department victim services workers Suzette Sanchez and Irma Lara.

To see full details on the honorees’ accomplishments, follow this link.

--Bay City News

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