Pat Brunson-Ware's vigil began as one night of grieving. It has stretched into 17 years of hope with her lawyers' words echoing in her mind.

"The lawyers who fought the case called it a 'fate worse than death,' " says Brunson-Ware, mother of Bert Brunson. He was 22 when arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol in 1991.

Two sheriff's deputies, including rookie deputy Chris M. Jones, stopped their cruiser at a service station near Knight-Arnold and Mendenhall while taking Brunson to jail. The officers said they were letting Brunson use the restroom when he tried to take away one of their guns and escape. Two other deputies were soon involved.

In the seconds that followed, Brunson was struck in the head with nightsticks, hog-tied and placed on his stomach in the back seat of a cruiser, says his mother and one of her attorneys, Andy Clark. Clark was soon involved in his first civil rights lawsuit. It accused the sheriff's deputies and the county of using unnecessary and unconstitutional force in an arrest that all but stole the life of Brunson-Ware's only son.

The oxygen supply to his brain was cut off, leaving him in what his mother says is a persistent vegetative state.

All of those memories flooded back for her a week ago when she was walking through her home and heard a TV newscast in the background. The name "Chris Jones" pierced her ears. He was charged with murder in connection with two shootings at the Windjammer club. A customer was critically injured, and disc jockey Donald Munsey died trying to stop Jones from shooting another customer.