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Woman Brings Compassion To A City's Violence Victims

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The Associated Press

Published: May 24, 2008

RICHMOND, Va. - Hospitals make the healer nervous, and before her lies a long institutional hallway. But she pushes forward, like she always does, because she has to. The man who needs her help is waiting.

Never mind the countless dead bodies she has seen, the bits of human flesh she has cleaned off the streets, the shattering screams of those she consoles after their loved ones are murdered. To the germ-phobic Alicia Rasin, today's hospital mission is scary.

Her goal, as always, is to heal. The hospital setting is incidental; the wounds she salves are not physical, but emotional. John Burnley - recovering from leg ulcer surgery but pained more by his broken heart - needs her. His daughter Juanita was shot to death in November. Like hundreds of families who have lost loved ones to violence in this city, he has come to rely on Rasin.

For more than 20 years, she has voluntarily rushed to homicide scenes throughout Richmond to comfort the grieving. It's a monstrous task; except for the past few years, Richmond's homicide rate typically has ranked among the highest in the nation. She organizes candlelight vigils for the dead, arranges their funerals, helps the families they have left behind cope with the pain. Sometimes, people call her to homicide scenes before they call the cops.

She gives meals to the homeless, serves as a mother-figure to the motherless, doles out hope to the hopeless. Local children who do good are invited to choose a gift from the Christmas tree she keeps year-round in her house. Children who are up to no good are invited to look at the casket she keeps year-round in her van - a sobering reminder of where they will end up if they don't shape up.

Virginia's governor once dubbed her the city's Ambassador of Compassion. Richmond's chief of police calls her Mother Teresa.

"It's a calling," she said, her pack-a-day smoker's voice deep and sandpapery. "I couldn't do this if God did not call me to do it. There's no way humanly possible."

She Appears 'Like An Angel'

There's a loud click-clack as the three-inch heels of her gold shoes strike the hospital hallway's tiles. As usual, Rasin is dressed to impress. The shoes match her gold suit, giant gold earrings and gold tooth. Her hip-length dreadlocks are hidden beneath an elaborate gold head wrap. All 10 fingers are encrusted with gold and diamond rings. Her toenails and talon-like fingernails are, of course, gold. Hollywood-sized sunglasses hide her light brown eyes, but she's hardly anonymous.

Burnley's face lights up when she reaches his room.

"She always appears," he said, eyes shining with tears. "Like an angel."

Within minutes, Burnley is weeping. He doesn't understand why his daughter had to die.

"I miss her so much," he moaned between sobs. "So much."
Rasin leaned close, placing her hand on his arm. "You have to cry," she said. "Just let it out."

She listened quietly as he purged his grief. It is a process they repeat several times a week, either in person or by phone. When his tears have dried, he stared at her thoughtfully.

"I used to often wonder about you," he said. "I used to see you on TV. I said, 'Now who is that lady?'"

She Answered Her Calling

The woman standing in the middle of the road was screaming. The man slumped over the wheel of a nearby car was her son. He had been shot to death.

Rasin, then in her 20s, was driving home from church when she happened upon the scene. She pulled over, leaped out of the car and hurried to the grieving mother.

"My son, my son!" the woman wailed. "I don't have anybody left!"

"You have Jesus," Rasin told her. "And you have me."

It was in that moment, Rasin said, that she realized her true calling.

She had spent much of her life helping others. As a child, she joined her aunt and uncle on missionary trips. She snatched the steaks her mother left on the counter and handed them to the homeless who slept in the park across from her house. As a teen, she became a junior missionary at her Baptist church. In her 20s, she attended funerals dressed in a nurse's uniform and carried smelling salts so she could revive mourners who fainted.

She earned a bachelor's in psychology from Virginia State University, wanting a career that would help others. Her father supported her financially, allowing her to focus full-time on her volunteer work.

She generally rises at 5 a.m. and heads to church. On her way to homicide scenes, she prays. Once there, she calms the grieving, explains why they can't hug the dead body of their loved one.

She often becomes their unofficial spokeswoman, speaking on their behalf to reporters seeking information about the deceased. She takes the families' calls at all hours of the night, whenever they need to talk. She listens, but never presumes to understand their pain.

She Advises And Consoles

Walking down the street or driving through the city, she stops to talk to young people who look like they may be heading down the wrong path. She listens to their troubles, hands out a little advice.

"Out of 12 that I talk to, I may reach but two," she said. "But I say thank you Lord, that's better than reaching none."

A haze of grief hung over Rosetta Mallory in the days after her son Dwayne was killed in August. Then Rasin appeared on her doorstep. She consoled the grieving mother, helped her two sons grapple with their brother's death.

Dwayne had been so excited about attending his mother's graduation from nursing school. The ceremony fell on the day of his wake. That day, Rasin helped Mallory dress in her cap and gown and pose for a picture - an homage to her son.

Mallory doesn't know how she would have coped had it not been for Rasin.

"It was like an angel just flew from heaven," Mallory says.

In 2002, Rasin founded Citizens Against Crime, a nonprofit group dedicated to combating violence in Richmond. In its early days, the group spent weekends marching through the city's violence-riddled neighborhoods, Rasin shouting into a bullhorn. She passed out fliers with phone numbers of domestic violence shelters, drug abuse hot lines and counselors.

She asked a local mortician for a small casket, then asked Precious, the little girl down the street, for her baby doll to place inside it. Rasin and the others carried the casket through the city.

The coffin has been a mainstay, though it can be unnerving to the uninitiated.

On Thanksgiving, a few teenage boys offered to help her load boxes of food for families of homicide victims into her van. One of them made the mistake of opening the trunk.

"What the HELL?!" he shouted, dropping a box of turkeys and canned goods. "There's a damn casket!"

Recalling the incident, Rasin roars with laughter. Despite all the suffering she sees, she maintains a sense of humor.

Her need to help seems innate, as does her ability to cope with trauma, said Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, who has known Rasin since she was a baby.

"I used to wonder how she could stand the ordeal of witnessing so much of the brutality," he said. "But it's almost a built-in resilience."

But the misery can get to her. She is 55, and has had her share of health issues. Ten years ago, her doctor demanded she stop attending funerals because they were wearing her out. She has survived stomach cancer and was left temporarily blinded by a brain tumor. Two years ago, she had open-heart surgery.

Two days after the hospital released her, she was counseling people by phone.

Occasional trips to the Bahamas soothe her spirit. She takes long drives through the Virginia countryside in her blue convertible that bears the license plate "AMBASOR," a nod to the "Ambassador of Compassion" nickname Gov. Timothy M. Kaine bestowed upon her when he was Richmond's mayor.
Rasin still lives in the home where she was raised, on a hill overlooking the city. Everywhere, there are reminders of her father, who died in her arms in 2006 as they watched "American Idol." In the depths of her mourning, she thought about quitting her work, but her father had always told her to keep on keeping on.

So she does. Disability checks allow her to continue volunteering.

But the work can be ugly, said Rasin's close friend Valerie Burrell-Muhammad. Years ago, they were driving past a homicide scene, when Rasin noticed the clean-up crew hadn't removed all the blood stains and bits of human tissue from the pavement. She pulled over and got to work.

Placing pieces of body matter into a plastic bag was too much for Burrell-Muhammad. These days, Rasin keeps a jug of bleach and rubber gloves in her van.

Now, when it's necessary, she handles clean-up duty alone.
Rasin Has Fans And Critics
Rasin has many other fans. Dozens of plaques and awards line the walls of her house, cover her piano, are strewn across her coffee table. They compete for space with photographs of Rasin with celebrities and politicians.

But with the accolades has come criticism. Some accuse her of seeking out the spotlight, exploiting families' pain to get attention. Burrell-Muhammad claims such comments bother Rasin; Rasin claims they don't.

The critics are either jealous, or "simple as hell," she said. "I tell them, 'Try doing what I do. Try doing what I do for one week. I'll shake your hand if you can do it.'"

Try sitting by the bedside of John Burnley. Try listening to his pain. Try turning his sobs to laughter.

"Miss Rasin, you something," Burnley said with a chuckle.

She grinned at him. "I know."

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