Countywide : Lungren Has Praise for the ‘Real Heroes’

At a conference bringing together crime victims and law enforcement personnel, state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren on Monday praised several Orange County citizens as “real heroes” for their work “on the front lines” of fighting crime.

Lungren presented public service awards to Collene Campbell of San Juan Capistrano, who pushed for a 1990 court reform measure, and Barbara Phillips of Irvine for developing programs that help victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and gangs.

Also honored at the Governor’s Conference on Victim Services and Public Safety were Project YES!, a gang prevention effort developed by the Orange County Education Department; Operation Cleanup, a Fullerton crime prevention program, and the Orange County Probation Department’s Juvenile Diversion Program.

In all, 32 individuals and agencies from across the state were recognized during the annual conference, which is being held this year in Anaheim. The event continues through Wednesday, with workshops about financial compensation for crime victims, the effects of child abuse, and ways of strengthening the family, among other things. State Controller Gray Davis will speak at the closing session Wednesday morning.

“The recognition doesn’t mean anything,” said Campbell, adding that she was not trying to become a hero by working on Proposition 115, the so-called Crime Victims Initiative passed in 1990. “I just had a wonderful family and I hope I can make a difference.”

Campbell became active in the victims’ rights movement after her son, Scott, was murdered in 1982. In 1988, her brother, racing promoter Mickey Thompson, and his wife, Trudy, were gunned down in the driveway of their Bradbury home in Los Angeles County. She helped establish COVER (Coalition of Victims’ Equal Rights) and MOVE (Memory of Victims Everywhere).

After the awards ceremony, Campbell tearfully said her work was “an effort to convert a terrible tragedy into something helpful, in memory of Mick, Trudy and Scotty.”

She said her next step will involve working on the federal level to help the President pass his crime bill and try to make people understand “the terrible impact of what’s happening.”

Phillips said it is important for law enforcement and victims’ advocates to work together to prosecute offenders.

“If people do not report crime and testify, the criminal will walk the streets,” Phillips said. “As victims’ advocates, our role is to look at the victims and their families and see how we can support them, what resources they need.”

Lungren, who lauded Campbell and the others as “real heroes,” compared crime-fighting to the war in the Persian Gulf, saying the United States was victorious because of its unity and purpose.

“In the war, we learned that you can have the system, you can have the technology, but if you don’t have the people on the ground . . . it’s not going to work,” he said. “We have to do the very same things” in the war on gangs and violent crime.”

Lungren said the large number of minority members in the military, combined with the armed forces’ outstanding performance in the war, proves that inner-city children are capable of greatness.

But Lungren said children need alternatives to “plastic heroes” such as professional athletes who gripe about multimillion-dollar salaries.

“The message of (Gens. Norman) Schwarzkopf and (Colin) Powell is sacrifice, discipline and working together,” he said. “The other message (of the athletes) is me, me, me.”