NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The two men disappeared into shadows as they turned the corner on July 26, 2018.
Daniel Hambrick, the devoted son and church member, whose life was just starting to open up, went first. Andrew Delke, a rising star in the Nashville police department, followed behind him.
Surveillance video scrutinized in court last month shows their long shadows lingering for a few frames before fading away.
What happened next shook the city and sparked a passionate, unresolved reckoning on police violence, systemic racism and the true meaning of public safety.
Delke, a then-25-year-old white officer with less than two years of experience, stopped running, held his gun out and pulled the trigger four times.
Hambrick, who was Black and also 25 at the time, fell to the ground, lifeless.
Andrew Delke’s guilty plea:Ex-Tennessee police officer pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter in 2018 shooting death of Black man
That violent collision, caught on video, lingered in the public consciousness for three years as a murder charge against the officer worked its way through the court system.
When the case came to a sudden end Friday, it unleashed a torrent of anguish.
As Delke prepared to take a last-minute plea deal, accepting a voluntary manslaughter charge and a three-year sentence, the Hambrick family vented their outrage — at Delke, at the city’s top prosecutor and at the criminal justice system itself.
They screamed, cried and banged on the courtroom doors.
Their position on the historic plea was clear: It might have been the most severe penalty ever for a Nashville officer after an on-duty shooting, but it was not enough.
The closed case will not provide closure.
“I am against this so-called plea deal,” Hambrick’s mother Vickie said in a statement Friday, moments before she toppled a lectern and left the courtroom. “I am against the way the state and the defense joined hands to protect this racist, biased anti-Black criminal system.”
District Attorney Glenn Funk said the plea deal was unprecedented. In court Friday, Funk said he was hopeful that the rare form of accountability would encourage police to redesign their training to avoid more deaths.
While commenting on the case, Police Chief John Drake said he would continue to make de-escalation and community relations priorities moving forward.
Related story:Prosecutors file charge against Nashville officer in black man’s shooting death
Activists were not convinced. They scheduled a flurry of protests as news of the plea deal spread, ensuring the debate over policing in Nashville would stretch well into the future.
Warning: Some of the videos in the playlist below contain offensive language.
‘That just took a big piece out of our family’
The people who know her best say Vickie Hambrick will never be the same. Daniel Hambrick was her only child. Her world.
“There is a void in me that cannot be filled,” she said in court Friday. “Nothing and no one compares to my precious son.”
She has become a solemn fixture at court hearings and protests. She finds her way to the front of the crowd, her head bowed.
“I gotta fight for my son because they shot him like he was a dog,” she said at a vigil honoring her son days after his death.
“My child is not a dog,” she said between sobs. “He was a human being.”
Vickie Hambrick and her family members want the man affectionately known as “Dan Dan” to be remembered for more than those final moments, captured in disturbing video footage that has played online and in the national news for years.
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In an interview, his cousin Sameka Hambrick said she would remember Daniel Hambrick as a quiet, doting son who was always on hand to help his legally blind mother.
He and his mother were a “package deal,” she said. He would cook her meals and drive her places, even pick out her outfits.
“He did millions of things,” she said. “He was just very family-oriented.”
Shortly before his death, she said, Daniel Hambrick was on the cusp of turning his life around. After facing several arrests and felony drug charges, he was preparing to start a new job.
He was so much more than that, Sameka Hambrick said.
He dreamed of saving enough money to get his mom eye surgery that would help her see more clearly. It was a goal that kept him going every day, his cousin said.
When he died, darkness settled over the whole family, especially Vickie.
“I don’t know if she’ll ever heal,” Sameka Hambrick said. “That just took a big piece out of our family.”
Sameka Hambrick had planned to sit with Vickie through the trial, which was to begin July 12. When those plans changed abruptly, it forced the Hambrick family to reckon with the reality that the kind of justice they craved for three years will never come.
Under the terms of his three-year sentence, which allow him to shave off jail time for good behavior, Delke could walk free in 18 months.
“This is just devastating,” Sameka Hambrick said. Delke “shot him in the back and he shot him in the head, and he’s able to go home to his family next year.”
Police department praises Delke for ‘excellent judgement’
Delke’s allies insist there is more to him than the murder charge.
His lead attorney David Raybin said he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter to avoid the possibility of a harsher penalty at trial. Raybin said Delke “entered law enforcement to make difference.”
Footage of the shooting, which showed Delke stopping to aim before shooting Hambrick in the back, drew widespread condemnation. But the Nashville police union, which is paying his legal fees, has been steadfast in its support.
They say he followed his police training that day.
Delke told investigators he fired in self defense after he saw Hambrick looking at him while holding a gun. Police recovered a gun under Hambrick’s body. Delke pleaded not guilty, and his legal team was poised to argue he only drew his weapon to protect himself and others.
Delke didn’t come to Nashville to become a police officer. The Michigan native first arrived in 2013 to attend Belmont University. His goal was to break into the music business — he graduated two years later with a degree in Entertainment Industry Studies.
He joined the department six months later.
Delke’s allies describe him as the model officer, who graduated second in his class at the Nashville training academy. His defense team said it was his dedication to that training that led him to fire on Hambrick.
His personnel file suggests support within the department as well.
He was tapped to join the Juvenile Crime Task Force shortly before the shooting.
Before the July 2018 foot chase, Delke received commendations lauding his “devotion,” and praising him for consistent traffic stops and arrests.
Although he was stripped of his gun and his badge while waiting for the trial, he continued working with the department in an administrative role. He resigned Thursday as part of the plea deal with prosecutors.
He got sterling performance evaluations as recently as last year. His managers repeatedly echoed the language used by his defense team in court.
“He uses excellent judgement at all times,” a supervisor wrote of Delke in 2020.
Delke’s own words in court Friday put that notion to the test, and are likely to animate the ongoing debate over how police training and culture in Nashville.
“I am pleading guilty today because I recognize that my use of deadly force was not reasonably necessary under all the circumstances,” a visibly emotional Delke said.
“Mrs. Hambrick lost her son that day,” he said. “And I am responsible for that loss.”
Vickie Hambrick’s grief showed no signs of waning.
“Because of you!” she screamed at Delke. “I hate you. I don’t accept your apology.”
Then Judge Monte Watkins accepted the plea. Delke went to jail.
And Vickie Hambrick went back outside, joining a throng of protesters on the courthouse steps.
Contributing: Mariah Timms.
Follow Adam Tamburin on Twitter: @tamburintweets.
