Anita Brown looked at the emergency text on her phone. She couldn’t believe what she was reading.

Someone had been shot at her home.

By the time Brown, a volunteer firefighter for District 5 in Oktibbeha County, rushed to the Bethel Road residence to see what had happened, she found her daughter, Arshuntay, lying near the front door dying from a gunshot wound.

Born on Mother’s Day in 1993 with a full head of hair, 28-year-old Arshuntay Brown’s life ended June 11, 2021. A mother’s “chocolate doll,” a sister’s best friend, a “free spirit” who loved dogs and “loved to talk” was gone.

“Every day since this happened, it’s like a bad dream I can’t wake up from,” Anita Brown said through tears Saturday morning.

It was December before police arrested Arshuntay’s boyfriend and charged him with murder. As much as Anita and her family want justice for Arshuntay, they found additional support from District Attorney Scott Colom’s office when they were encouraged to join the Survivors’ Circle — a grief support group for people in Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee counties who have lost loved ones to violence.

Anita attends the monthly meetings at the Lowndes County Courthouse with her surviving daughter Arshaylian and her sisters, Aries Spruell and Emily Reynolds. There they find others dealing with the same trauma of learning how to go about everyday life without their loved one.

“It’s been very helpful,” Arshaylian said. “It’s taught us something new about ourselves. It’s shown us ways to grieve without beating ourselves up with our grief.”

The circle

Survivors’ Circle began in late 2019 under the direction of Tina Rogers, the victims assistance director for the DA’s office.

“No one is forced into it,” Rogers said. “We let them know this is a service available to them, and even those who don’t want to be a part, we send them a note every month to let them know (they are still welcome to join).”

Rogers, a certified grief counselor, said the program is based on an eight-part curriculum. Early sessions ask participants to talk about their grief timeline up to that point — what led to the loss, the loss itself and the immediate aftermath. Subsequent sessions deal with such things as pain, guilt and what she calls “serves” (short-term energy relieving behaviors). Those “serves,” she said, can be things like compulsive shopping or drug/alcohol use, which she addresses and tries to help circle members replace with more positive behaviors.

Often, a step in the process can take more than one meeting to tackle.

“We sometimes go off-topic to discuss a specific issue a family is dealing with,” Rogers said. “The reality is this group is more peer-to-peer, so maybe there’s something one family is doing that can help another family, and we discuss those things openly.”

The most intense step, and the one that Rogers said usually takes the longest, is writing a letter to the loved one they’ve lost. After participants write it, they have the opportunity to read it out loud.

“There’s a lot of raw emotion that comes out then,” she said. “These people had their loved ones taken from them abruptly. They didn’t have an opportunity to say goodbye. … The letter provides closure, and a lot of times people aren’t ready for that. They are still holding onto something to mourn.”

Colom started Survivors’ Circle after researching methods to help victims’ families in a more impactful way. Getting justice in court, he said, was only part of the equation, and he believes the peer-to-peer grief counseling helps families better cope with the trauma and find a stronger sense of closure.

“We’re just trying to help people heal,” Colom said. “That needs to become more normalized in our justice system because there’s so much trauma going untreated. I’m excited to see that this program seems to be working.”

Since the program’s inception, Rogers said there’s been a total of 16 participants representing five violent crime victims. The COVID-19 pandemic briefly drove the meetings to a virtual format, but since they have returned to in-person, she said about nine show up on average for the monthly meetings.

Even after they make it through the whole curriculum, Rogers said participants are welcome to stay in the group.

“They can come forever,” she said.

Building bonds

Every morning Sheila Swift wakes up, she thinks about her daughter’s death and has to acknowledge all over again that it really happened.

Laquilla Clark, 30, was shot dead at her Oktibbeha County home on March 17, 2021. Her significant other at the time has been charged with her murder.

“I take medicine to help cope with it,” said Swift, a beautician in West Point. “I don’t think that’s fair. I get angry about that. … I’m taking it a day at a time, but it’s very hard.”

Swift began attending Survivors’ Circle in September. She quickly built a friendship with the Browns, specifically Anita.

“We didn’t know her before,” Arshaylian Brown said. “But her and my mom have become really good friends, and our family went out (on Laquilla’s birthday) to the balloon release.”

For Rogers, stories like that might be the most important part of the program.

“(Participants) are asked to come in and are willing to share what they are going through with people they don’t know,” Rogers said. “They’re doing that and it makes me proud. The bonds they are starting to build are tremendous.”

Swift said the most difficult part for her is when new members come into the group and tell their story.

“It feels like a start-over to me,” she said.

But the relationships, especially with the Browns, help pull her through the toughest times, Swift said.

“I can relate to them,” she said. “When I’m feeling down, I can call or text them. They check on me, and I check on them. I’m so glad I met them.”

Anyone living in the four-county circuit court district who has lost a loved one to violence can call Rogers at 662-329-5911 to learn more about the Survivors’ Circle.

Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.