DECATUR, Ga. — You could travel down Columbia Drive in Decatur and never know a man was killed there seven years ago by a hit-and-run driver. You’d never know that happened but that man’s brother, can never forget it did.
Asphalt and paint mark the intersection where James gathers his family every year. It’s all for one -- a missing one. His oldest brother, Joe.
“He’d smile so much sometimes it’d make you wanna slap him," James said. “I have not had gone a day in I don’t know how many years without mentioning my brother.”
On December 13, 2013, Joe Davenport, an Army Veteran and sous chef died after being hit by a car walking home from work.
James got two phone calls a few minutes after it happened.
“Crime scene tape, I mean it was full, everybody in the subdivisions were out here. As I approached, police over said you can’t be in this area. I said 'you don’t understand, that’s my brother’s shoe' and I said, 'that’s my brother’s other shoe.'”
In the years that followed, James lost of his two nephews -- Joe’s only sons.
“Unfortunately, both his sons took their own lives," James said. "I don't know what all was happening for them, but if I had to guess, they were so closed with their father, I bet that had something to do with them doing what they did."
Now, on the side of the road where cars still drive so fast, the tiny flames James and family were trying to lit for his memorial vigil, flickered out from the speed.
Not only does James go to the intersection to honor his brother, but he successfully petitioned the city of Atlanta to declare December 13th, the day of Joe’s death, Hit and Run Fatalities Awareness Day in 2019.
This year, he successfully convinced DeKalb County to the same.
“Proclamation just printed today," James said proudly, holding the letter.
James will tell you he’s dedicated his life to his brother – and to raising awareness, hoping to get laws changed to give longer sentences to hit and run drivers and while this isn’t a road he ever wanted to cross.
"I’ll never give up. (Someone) just had a total disregard for human life and took him away from us.”
James is petitioning the Governor’s office and the President’s office to have December 13th officially declared Hit and Run Pedestrian Fatality Awareness Day.
It could come at no sooner time, James said, as 7,000 people were killed nationally by cars in 2020.
James said one witness saw his brother get hit. But it was so dark that she couldn't make out much about the car and his brother's killer still hasn't been found.
James started a foundation, Hit and Run Help Foundation, and hopes to one day raise money to provide families of pedestrians killed in hit and runs with financial aid.