FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 24, 2002

Contact: Josh Freed
(202) 225-4431

Washington, DC – In tribute to Jeannie Van Velkinburgh, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) issued the following statement, which was also placed in the Congressional Record.

Today, I join all of Denver in sorrow at the tragic loss one of our city’s great heroines and in offering my heartfelt condolences to her sons, Joseph and Anthony. A person of great courage and selflessness, Jeannie VanVelkinburgh exemplifies the virtues Denver strives for.

On the night of November 18, 1997, Jeannie was shot and paralyzed while trying to prevent the murder of Oumar Dia, a West African immigrant living in Denver, who was attacked just because he was black.

Despite struggling everyday with her paralysis, Jeannie never regretted putting her own life at risk to try save the life of a stranger. Just last week she reiterated her conviction that she had done the right thing, saying, “You’re supposed to help people when things are going wrong…If you walk away, how can you call yourself a good person?”

Everyone in our community can learn from Jeannie’s legacy of love and respect for all people, regardless of their race, religion, or ethnicity. While her ongoing efforts to recover from the attack were so difficult, Jeannie remained an icon of the fight for equality. Esquire Magazine recognized her in 1998 as one of the “New American Heroes” for standing up for a man she had never met before. In 1999 she received the prestigious Hubert H. Humphrey Award from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights for exemplifying Humphrey’s legacy of selflessness and devoted service for equality.

The men involved in wounding her so deeply, both physically and emotionally, are now behind bars, but that does not mean the fight for justice is over. I urge all Denverites to follow her belief that, “we should stick together no matter what color you are.”

For my part, I will continue to introduce and support legislation that will strengthen the regulations for purchasing assault weapons by working to close the “gun show loop hole”. Furthermore, I will continue to work towards strengthening the penalties for hate crimes, the kind of crime that took the lives of both Jeannie VanVelkinburgh and Oumar Dia.

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