Candlelight flickered across Public Square Park Tuesday night at a vigil mourning the deaths of two Nashville men killed by local police officers.
Two years have passed since an officer shot and killed Daniel Hambrick while he was running away from a traffic stop. His mother Vickie says that time has felt especially long.
“I miss my baby. I miss my baby so much. So much,” she says, Hambrick’s two sisters standing beside her.
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Vickie describes Hambrick as her “miracle baby” and her “everything.” He gave his mom rides and helped her wash up; anything his legally blind mother needed.
“My son got killed on my sister’s birthday. I was so angry! So angry,” she says. “But I couldn’t question God. But I just thank God for them 25 years.”
“I miss my baby so much,” Vickie says. Daniel did everything for her—paid her bills, got her groceries. But she says she’s grateful for the 25 years they had together. pic.twitter.com/eYgJwzfI7D
— Samantha Max (@samanthaellimax) July 22, 2020
Hambrick would have turned 27 last month, just as demonstrators filled the streets to protest the deaths of George Floyd and others killed by law enforcement.
Teen activists who organized two of the city’s largest Black Lives Matter marches say they’re now learning the stories of local victims of police violence.
“Today we take this time to remember Daniel Hambrick, a person who deserved to live, a person who deserved to be protected by a police officer and not killed by a police officer,” says Kennedy Green, a 14-year-old organizer with Teens4Equality. “We also take this time to remember another Nashvillian who died from police brutality, Jocques Clemmons.”
Green then led the group in a series of chants to honor the two men.
“When I say, ‘Say his name,’ you say Daniel Hambrick’s name as loud as you can,” she urged the crowd. “And when I say, ‘Say his name,’ you say Jocques Clemmons’ name as loud as you can.”
“When I say say his name, yell Daniel Hambrick’s name as loud as you can,” says Kennedy Green, one of the members of Teens for Equality. “When I say Jocques Clemmons, Yelp it as loud as you can.” pic.twitter.com/2p5pkrQ8lH
— Samantha Max (@samanthaellimax) July 22, 2020
The officer who killed Clemmons resigned from the Metro Nashville Police Department last year but was never criminally charged.
Officer Andrew Delke, who shot Hambrick, has been reassigned to desk duty while he awaits trial on the first murder charges brought against a Nashville police officer for an on-duty killing.
The trial was scheduled for this summer but has been postponed due to COVID-19. A new date has not yet been set.
Hambrick’s sister, Jasmine Davis, says she hopes Nashvillians will fill the courtroom to support her family, when the time comes. And that they’ll keep protesting, to prevent anyone else from feeling the same pain her family has felt. She says her 6-year-old son is in therapy, because he’s terrified of the police.
“Daniel’s not the first person that this happened to. But, because we keep letting it be swept under the rug and swept under the rug and swept under the rug, they’re going to continue to do it,” Davis says. “They think nobody cares. But we care.”
Samantha Max is a Report for America Corps member.
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