Victims of Violent Crime to be Remembered This Week

People who lost their lives to violent crime will be remembered during candlelight vigils this week in Palm Desert, Riverside and Temecula.

April 6-12 is National Crime Victims' Rights Week, recognized annually by the Riverside County District Attorney's Office in special ceremonies, all of which get underway at 7 p.m.

The first of three public remembrance services will be held Tuesday at the Palm Desert Civic Center Park amphitheater, 43-900 San Pablo St.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving activist Lory Gleason will be the keynote speaker. In 2002, Gleason's son was killed by a drunken driver near Palm Desert High School.

The second vigil is scheduled Wednesday in Temecula at the Harveston Center, Harveston Lake Park, 40135 Village Road. The wife of a man killed in March 2011 when his vehicle was broadsided by a parolee fleeing from Beaumont police is slated to speak.

The final vigil will be held Thursday, beginning with a brief ceremony outside the Riverside Historic Courthouse, 4050 Main St., from which attendees will walk and gather at the Victims' Memorial Courtyard, adjacent to the D.A.'s headquarters at 3960 Orange St.

The mother of sheriff's dispatcher Dominic Durden is scheduled to speak. Durden died in a 2012 crash precipitated by a convicted felon who turned in front of the 30-year-old's motorcycle as it was going south on Pigeon Pass Way in Moreno Valley.

All of the speakers are expected to talk about the impact of losing a loved one and how they've coped.

During the Indio vigil, a MADD "crash car" will be on display, and all three vigils will include a display of memorial quilts which bear stories from the families of murder victims.

– City News Service.