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Notes 1. Interview with Ray Blakeney, Director of Operations for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of Oklahoma, April 19, 2000. 2. Some officials observed that the arrival of OVC-sponsored crisis intervenors came too soon after the explosion and recommended agencies delay this kind of assistance until the immediate rescue effort is completed. 3. The defense argued that an unidentified leg could have belonged to the perpetrator. The leg was later identified as belonging to one of the victims. 4. The Employee Assistance Program at the U.S. Department of Justice has now developed Peer Support Team Training including a section on Critical Incident Trauma. 5. After the suicide of a colleague, some employees took advantage of Project Heartland’s counseling and debriefing resources. 6. Christy Prietsch, Administrator, U.S. Attorneys Employee Assistance Program. 7. Under its own guidelines, FEMA could only provide funding for crisis response services in the presidentially declared disaster area and for a limited period of time. FEMA funds could not be used for trial support. 8. OVC’s grant, awarded on March 11, 1997, funded crisis counseling during the trials at the Safe Haven in Oklahoma City and the Safe Haven in Denver, operated by the Colorado Oklahoma Resource Council, including volunteer training. Project Heartland staff also assisted U.S. Attorney’s Office staff in debriefing prosecution witnesses when they completed testimony. 9. According to 42 U.S.C.10607(e)(2): “the term ‘victim’ means a person that has suffered direct physical, emotional, or pecuniary harm as a result of the commission of a crime, including (A) in the case of a victim that is an institutional entity, an authorized representative of the entity; and (B) in the case of a victim who is under 18 years of age, incompetent, incapacitated, or deceased, one of the following (in order of preference): (i) a spouse; (ii) a legal guardian; (iii) a parent; (iv) a child; (v) a sibling; (vi) another family member; or (vii) another person designated by the court.” 10. Because the bomb blast made the 26-story apartment building unstable, all residents were forced to move to hotels for 6 months. Many were elderly and disabled, and most knew parents or grandparents of children killed in the explosion. Following several other attempts, Project Heartland initiated a support group for residents. On completion of renovations, all Project Heartland staff helped tenants move back to their apartments. 11. Under a later Interagency Agreement (March 4, 1997) between EOUSA, OVC, and the FBI, EOUSA agreed to “assign its personnel and/or Victim-Witness Coordinators from other USAs’ [U.S. Attorneys’] offices to assist with victim services on location at the discretion of the USA” in the case of a catastrophic event. OVC agreed to provide financial and technical support for emergency victim services and to “commit staff time and funds necessary to enable the staff of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI to receive onsite technical assistance.” 12. Assistant United States Attorney K. Lynn Anderson. 13. To protect victim privacy and avoid any possibility of tainting the jury pool, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in consultation with Project Heartland recommended against private-housing offers. The Travel Committee supported the recommendation by issuing a press release on the victims’ need for privacy while attending the trial. 14. Agencies making up CORC were Catholic Charities, Church of the Holy Ghost, City of Denver, Colorado Council of Churches, Colorado Division of Criminal Justice, Colorado Organization for Victims’ Assistance, Denver District Attorney’s Office, Denver Victims Service Center, Downtown Denver Partnership, Denver Federal Executive Board, Governor Roy Romer’s Office, Lutheran Family Services/Lutheran Disaster Response, Mayor Wellington Webb’s Office, Mile High United Way, American Red Cross, District Attorney’s Victim/Witness Programs, and Volunteers of America. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Oklahoma participated in an advisory capacity. 15. With judicial approval established, the Attorney Liaison and Colorado District Court Clerk convened FAA representatives, judicial administrators, U.S. Marshals Service representatives, media representatives, Judge Perricone, and others to plan logistics including security, meals, privacy, and mental health needs during the broadcasts. Later meetings on mental health support took place with FAA staff, Safe Haven and Project Heartland counselors, and victim-witness coordinators. Planning involved both facilitiesthe CCTV site in the auditorium and the Safe Haven. The Attorney Liaison also participated in training programs for the mental health and community volunteers who would staff the FAA Safe Haven. 16. In establishing the four remote court sites in the Pan Am Flight 103/Lockerbie trial, the issue about the quality of the transmission of the trial broadcasts was addressed by using a high band width, positioning six movable cameras in the courtroom, and using an audio-visual director to choreograph the detailed images appearing on the screen. 17. “Secondary” and “tertiary” victims include social service and mental health professionals; volunteers; fire, police, and other emergency response-and-rescue personnel; colleagues and friends; attorneys who worked with witnesses and sifted evidence; medical personnel; victim advocates; clergy who consoled victims and officiated at many funerals; schoolteachers; and children whose belief in a safe future was shattered. The circle of those affected also includes jurors, dentists with identification responsibilities, bomb technicians, morgue workers, technical investigators, National Guard members, reporters, photographers, construction workers, and the larger community of Oklahoma City. From June 1, 1995, to February 29, 1998, an unduplicated count of 8,869 persons received counseling, support group, or crisis intervention services. 18. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (Faberow and Frederick, 1978), there is also a fifth and final stage, the “recovery” stage, where life has returned to a state of normalcy and victims draw strength from the fact that they have survived and were able to mend their lives. 19. Interview with James Horn, Critical Incident Workshop Groups, Inc. 20. Interviews with James Horn, Diane Leonard, and Col. Jack Poe, Critical Incident Workshop Groups, Inc. 21. Interview with K. Lynn Anderson, Assistant U.S. Attorney. 22. In 1996, Congress passed the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act, which requires Federal Courts to award restitution for most crimes defined in title 18 U.S.C. 23. The Privacy Act only covers Federal Government agencies defined as “any Executive department, military department, Government corporation, Government controlled corporation, or other establishment in the executive branch of the [Federal] Government (including the Executive Office of the President), or any independent regulatory agency” (5 U.S.C. § 552a(1)). Private organizations that have many “links” to the Federal Government are not covered by the Privacy Act (see Dong v. Smithsonian Institution, 125 F.3d 877, 879–80 (D.C. Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 524 U.S. 922 (1998) (Smithsonian Institution)). 24. The hijacking of an Egypt Air jet and the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia in the mid-1980s each took more than 10 years to come to trial. The trial of two men accused of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing in 1988 finally began in May 2000. To date, there has not been an arrest in the bombing of Khobar Towers. 25. It is probably unrealistic to expect that the FBI or OVC maintain staffing resources to cope with either short-term or extended efforts to provide information to large numbers of victims. NTSB contracts with a private company that specializes in crisis response, has the ability to quickly establish and maintain a toll-free victim assistance hotline, and provides ongoing notification. The FBI and OVC should consider utilizing the same type of resources in terrorism cases, particularly when the victims are not from one geographic region. 26. The case of Pan Am Flight 103 is an example of how to keep informed large numbers of victims who are scattered geographically. A secure, informational Web site was established for the families of Pan Am Flight 103/Lockerbie victims to provide them with daily trial summaries and other related information. 27. CMHS, SAMHSA, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, developed a report, Human-Caused Disasters: Recommendations for the Crisis Counseling and Assistance Program (Center for Mental Health Services, ND). This report contains important and detailed recommendations for improving the mental health response to victims of terrorism and other human-caused disasters. OVC staff participated in the development of the report. | ||||
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