Waffle House killer gets anger management, 10 years

The killer of Eric Hambrick will spend five years in anger management but less than a decade in prison.

“It’s a travesty. You would think someone would receive a longer penalty for what they did,” said friend Greg Flynn, who worked with Hambrick at the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. “Human lives aren’t valued as much as they used to be.”

Hambrick, 52, who handled contracts and purchasing at MEMA, loved to sing, performing with First Baptist Church, the Mississippi Opera, the Mississippi Chorus, the Metro Male Chorus and local theater. He also loved Waffle House, stopping to eat there on 106 Larson St. after that night's rehearsal on May 28, 2015.

A week later, Arkel Coleman, 19, and Shrederrick Anderson, 18, confessed to Jackson police that they had fatally beat and robbed Hambrick that night.

Because the slaying took place during another felony, the teenagers could have been charged with capital murder. Instead, they were each charged with murder and strong-arm robbery.

Coleman pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie Green sentenced him to 10 years in prison with an additional five years suspended. In exchange for the plea, the district attorney dropped the robbery charge.

Coleman won’t have to spend all 10 years in prison because of time served in jail. Anderson’s case has not appeared before the judge.

Former Chancery Judge Roger Clapp, who sang alongside Hambrick in the Mississippi Chorus, said he learned as a judge “unless you’re there throughout a hearing or trial, you don’t know what a judge has to work with, but I can’t imagine such a light sentence for such a horrible deed.”

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Sherry Boyer, executive director of the Mississippi Chorus, called Hambrick “a very generous, gentle giant. He was so kind. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do.”

She saw cruel irony in his slaying.

“The guys that whacked him in the head,” she said, “if they had asked him for his ring, he would have given that to them. And he would have given them the shirt off his back, too.”

Robert Shivers, president of the Mississippi Chorus, said he was told the robbers took Hambrick's life because he wouldn't give up his father's watch.

Brett Carr, who worked at MEMA with Hambrick, called him “one of the nicest people I ever met and worked with. He was a joy to be around. He made everyone’s day brighter.”

Flynn, external affairs director for MEMA, said Hambrick “never walked around the building without humming or singing. You would know Eric was coming down the hallway.”

One time as the holidays approached, Hambrick sang at a MEMA training session.

“He was singing like Pavarotti,” Flynn recalled. “He was literally a ray of sunshine.”

Hambrick took “The 12 Days of Christmas” and changed the lyrics to make them fit MEMA work. (The “five golden rings” became “five purchase orders.”)

Marina Hansen, chorus manager for the Mississippi Opera, praised Hambrick’s singing and acting and even more his kindness toward others.

“I never heard him say a bad word about anybody,” she said. “It’s just sad. It seems like the good ones go first.”

Using FBI statistics from 2015, 24/7 Wall Street ranked Jackson among the worst murder capitals in the nation, ranking sixth with a homicide rate of 31.1 per 100,000 people. In 2015, 58 homicides took place in the city.

Jackson saw 69 homicides over the past year — the highest in the capital city in more than a decade.

The upward trend is not restricted to Jackson. Mississippi trails only Louisiana in the number of homicides per capita — 10.3 per 100,000 people compared to Mississippi’s 8.7.

Interactive Map: Jackson homicides in 2017

Jackson Police Chief Lee Vance said he feels like the criminal justice system has become a revolving door.

The other day, a felon wearing an ankle bracelet carjacked a woman in Jackson, he said.

Jackson police have seen a “92 percent clearance rate,” he said. “It’s up to the criminal justice system to hold them accountable.”

He said police “arrest the same ones over and over and over again. Making cases is all the law allows us to do. We’re not in a position to set bond. We’re not in a position to sentence. We’re not the Department of Corrections.”

He said he’s not in “the finger-pointing business. Anybody who looks with an objective eye can tell what is happening. It’s pretty obvious.”

Contact Jerry Mitchell at (601) 961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.