Posted: 4:34 PM Dec 28, 2012
Reporter: Frankie Jupiter

Family of Missing Man Holds Protest at Charlottesville Police Department

December 28, 2012

Family and supporters of Dashad "Sage" Smith held signs and protested along the Downtown Mall and in front of the Charlottesville police station. They say they are not happy with police efforts to find the missing man.

"I'm trying to let them know that we're here," said Smith's stepmother, Latasha Gardner. "We're not going anywhere. We're going to make the city aware that we need the community as a whole to come together."

Smith has been missing for more than a month. His family has celebrated his birthday and this past Christmas without him.

"There is something about him that exuberates life, which was missing this holiday," said Smith's cousin, Kenneth Jackson.

The heartbreak the Smith family is going through is shared by the family of Morgan Harrington. She went missing in October of 2009. Her remains were discovered three months later on an Albemarle County farm.

"From the beginning I was missing Morgan," said Morgan's mother Gil Harrington. "But I didn't misplace her or lose her. She was robbed and stolen from us, just as this young man was stolen from his loving family."

"It's been difficult not only for myself but for the whole family," said Gardner. "We're not going to stop. Our voices are not going to be not heard."

Newsplex.com Mobile Home

Gray Television, Inc - Copyright 2002-2012 - Powered by Gray Interactive Media

Full Site - Contact Station