HAMPTON — Steve Blizzard. Ronald Jeffers. Scott and Shirley Leavitt.
“We will never forget their names,” Hampton Mayor Ann Tarpley said in a sermon-like address during Monday night’s candlelight vigil to honor and remember the four residents who were killed Saturday during a mass shooting in the small south Henry County town.
“Hampton will never be the same,” she said but spoke of God and faith — which will ultimately pull the families and the community through the horrific events that transpired Saturday and Sunday.
“The foolishness that’s going on in the world, I don’t know anybody else who can fix it — it’s going to take an act of God,” she said.
After Saturday’s shootings, a manhunt ensued for the suspect, Andre Longmore, who was ultimately tracked down in Clayton County and was killed in a shootout with police in Jonesboro. Two Clayton County Police officers and one Henry County Sheriff’s deputy were injured in the shootout.
“It wasn’t a resolution we wanted, but we at least brought peace to the community — it gave another victim to the city of Hampton,” Hampton Police Chief Bo Turner said. “The mother of the suspect is a victim as well. She has lost a son — that’s something we can’t fathom as we grieve tonight as a community.”
As he reflected back on Saturday, Hampton City Manager Alex Cohilas described it as “surreal and sad.”
“It was unbelievable when I first received the phone call from Chief Turner about what was unraveling in that subdivision,” he said. “As the incident grew and we had to deploy more people, I couldn’t believe what was happening. More lives were touched as the day progressed.”
Cohilas said that he was asked where the city of Hampton goes from here.
“We’re going to need God’s help,” he said and added that “I know this — in time of grieving we…
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