JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Eight years ago Monday, 17-year-old Jordan Davis was shot and killed outside a gas station on the Southside during an argument over loud music.
The Wolfson High School student had just celebrated Thanksgiving with his family in 2012.
″He was just exuberant,” Ron Davis, the teen’s father, told News4Jax. “He was happy to say the prayer for dinner. We did it early in the afternoon about 3 o’clock and I just remember how it was very meaningful to his prayer and he was hoping for the best for all of his friends.”
Reflecting on the final 24 hours of his son’s life, Ron Davis said it reminded him how much his son cared.
“The last time that I hugged him goodbye and that was at 2:30 in the afternoon,” he said. “I remember it distinctly 2:30 on the 23rd was the last time I hugged my son while he was alive.”
Ron Davis said the past eight years have been difficult for him and Jordan Davis’ mother, Congresswoman Lucy Mcbath, who was elected last year in the state of Georgia. Ron Davis continues to run the Jordan Davis Foundation, which helps disadvantaged youth.
Ron Davis said that this Thanksgiving he’s thankful for the support he’s received from all across the country, urging parents to hug their children even closer this year, as if those moments were their last.
″Every day that you have with your children, you have to value that,” he said. “Your children can be taken away from you at any time.”
Ron Davis said McBath will continue her fight in congress in crafting safe gun laws. Jordan Davis would have been 25 years old in 2020.
The man who killed him is serving a life sentence for his murder.