How Sheila Clemmons Lee Moved From Grief to Action

See also: Calls for Community Oversight Echo Through Nashville History

“To know Jocques is to love Jocques,” says Sheila Clemmons Lee in her tidy living room in East Nashville. She sits on a sofa beside her husband, Mark Lee, with her daughter and granddaughter occupying an armchair nearby. A portrait of her son Jocques Clemmons hangs above her. In it, he wears a bright smile. 

  “If you had a bad day,” she says, “he could walk in the room and change the whole atmosphere, you know, smiling and joking and picking with you.” Clemmons Lee recalls that her son was a protective older brother to his three sisters, with plenty of razzing among them. He spent time with his young cousins, mentoring them and taking them to appointments, and he considered himself a master on the grill.  

Jocques Clemmons, who was black, was killed in February 2017 by Officer Joshua Lippert, who is white, after a traffic stop in a parking lot of the James A. Cayce homes. Video footage of the incident shows Clemmons and Lippert engaged in a brief foot chase. At one point, Clemmons turns and reaches behind him. Lippert pursues, and Clemmons falls to the ground between two parked cars. Later, the Metro Nashville Police Department reported that Lippert shot Clemmons once in the side and twice in the back. According to the MNPD, Clemmons dropped and reached for a loaded .357 magnum pistol. He was 31 years old. 

The department began its own investigation, and the Scene obtained emails between MNPD Chief Steve Anderson, TBI Deputy Director Jason Locke and District Attorney Glenn Funk — a tense back-and-forth about who should be investigating the case. In May 2017, Funk announced that a case against Lippert would not be brought to a grand jury. 

The week after Jocques Clemmons was killed, his mother sprang to action. Activists Theeda Murphy and Gicola Lane approached Clemmons Lee to offer condolences, and the three formed the Justice for Jocques Coalition. It quickly gained supporters, and a new coalition, Community Oversight Now, was formed with the goal of implementing a civilian-review board to oversee complaints against the MNPD. Now, nearly two years later, a charter amendment to form a community oversight board in Nashville is on the Nov. 6 ballot. 

“I was a grieving mother, but at the same time I was an angry mother and wanted answers,” says Clemmons Lee. “And so I wanted to be involved in everything that revolved around Jocques. That meant protesting, that meant the sit-in, that meant the COB, because I owe that much to my son.”

From September 2017 to February 2018, Clemmons Lee sat outside the MNPD East Precinct most evenings with other members of the Justice for Jocques Coalition, demanding that Lippert be fired and Anderson agree to meet with her family. Anderson eventually agreed to meet, but rescinded his offer when Clemmons Lee insisted that supporter and friend Murphy attend. 

Among Clemmons Lee’s many reasons for taking action was her feeling that the department did not treat her son with dignity. Within hours of the incident, the MNPD called Clemmons a “gunman” and released details of his criminal record. A month after the shooting, police obtained a warrant to dig through Clemmons’ social media history. It took a year, and a federal lawsuit, for Clemmons Lee to get her son’s cellphone — and the family photos it contained — back from the authorities.

“This is my way of protecting my son, because [the MNPD] has tarnished him,” says Clemmons Lee. “They made him a suspect instead of a victim. I mean, they dehumanized my son, and it’s up to me as his mother to make sure that people know he’s human.” 

Prior to Lippert’s fatal encounter with Clemmons, the officer had been suspended a total of 20 days as a result of infractions including excessive use of force and unnecessarily escalating a situation. At the time of his death, Clemmons was serving an eight-year probation term for a felony drug conviction. Activists point to a Gideon’s Army study called “Driving While Black,” which showed that Nashville police disproportionately target African-Americans for traffic stops and searches that often reveal no criminal activity.

The MNPD claims the numbers reflect the fact that their officers are deployed to high-crime areas to control drug-related activity and homicide — not to pull people into the criminal justice system through traffic infractions. Still, between 2003 and 2016, Clemmons was cited or arrested 19 times for driver’s license violations. Clemmons Lee believes her son’s life could have been saved by a community oversight board. 

“Had the [board] been put in place and the board knew about Lippert’s eight disciplinary actions,” says Clemmons Lee, “the board could have made a recommendation that, no, Lippert doesn’t need to be a police officer, or Lippert doesn’t need to be on the streets.” 

According to Clemmons Lee, advocating for her son helped her cope at first. “I can truly and honestly say the whole year of 2017, I really didn’t grieve my son because I was too busy fighting for my son. And this year, reality set in. My son is not coming back. But at same time, I’m still fighting for him. I said during the sit-in that I realized that I couldn’t help Jocques. But if I could help the next family that comes along and make that road a little easier for them to get their justice, then my son didn’t die in vain.”

That opportunity came in July, when 25-year-old Daniel Hambrick was killed by MNPD Officer Andrew Delke, also 25. Delke pursued Hambrick in a foot chase and shot him twice in the back and once in the back of the head. Last month, District Attorney Funk brought homicide charges against Delke.

Says Clemmons Lee: “When people asked me when Delke got arrested, ‘How did that make you feel?’ the only thing I could say was, ‘Thank you, Lord.’ Because the work isn’t in vain.” 

Hambrick’s death also made Clemmons Lee relive the trauma of her son’s death — “the same scene, just different characters,” she says. “It’s a shame, because you got two families that are going to suffer either way,” she adds, referencing both Hambrick’s and Delke’s families. “Just like with us, you had two families that suffered either way. I can sleep at night. But I wonder, can Lippert sleep at night?” 

If she saw Lippert, she says, she would tell him she forgives him. “See,” she says, “this is not for him. It’s for me. It’s my peace, and ever since I said that out loud … I just felt this big weight off my shoulders.”

Clemmons Lee says she finds strength in her family, especially her husband, who has been by her side at protests and rallies since the beginning. Last Thanksgiving, she framed a picture of her son and put it at his place at the dinner table. “We hung that picture like he was just right there eating his food, you know, and everybody loved it.” She also finds strength in prayer. “We pray for Lippert’s family, you know. That’s just who we are.” 

Clemmons Lee believes a community oversight board could restore trust between the police and black communities. Officers “won’t be so quick to pull their weapons and shoot and kill if they know that somebody’s watching them,” she says, “especially when they’ve been trained to fear the black community.” 

She continues: “So having this board put in place will make them think twice before pulling that trigger. It’s accountability. That’s all it is. And that matters. It matters to the black community. It matters to the white community. It matters to the Latino community, I mean all communities. So therefore the community oversight board will benefit everybody here.” 

Clemmons Lee is hopeful that Nashville will vote the amendment in and a civilian review board will be instituted, and adds that despite the hurdles Community Oversight Now has faced, she’s always felt confident. She says she told the coalition last year to stop using the word “if.” “Say when the community oversight board is born,” she told fellow activists.

Jackie Sims, a longtime activist and member of Community Oversight Now, describes Clemmons Lee as a “trouper.”

“If I were in her shoes, I don’t know if I would have had the emotional wherewithal to do this, because it’s a constant reminder that she lost her son and how she lost her son,” says Sims. “And the fact that law enforcement could have been kinder and gentler in the way that they reacted to her — the request she made for her son’s personal things and his phone and whatnot. Sometimes it’s the little things that can make the biggest difference.” 

It’s a sobering reminder that how we vote depends largely on where we stand. When Clemmons Lee votes for Amendment 1, it won’t be for political reasons or a simple moral imperative. It will be based on her theory that the amendment can be the difference between life and death for the sons of other women in Nashville.  

 Two weeks before he died, Clemmons spent the whole day in church, his mother remembers. The choir sang his favorite church song, a gospel tune called “Jesus Cares,” and he was standing up, clapping and singing along. It’s an enduring memory for Sheila Clemmons Lee, and a happy one. Midway through the song, the lyrics are: “Sometimes I’m up / Sometimes I’m down / I’m almost leveled to the ground / But I know that he cares for me.” 

Whether or not the charter amendment passes, on Thanksgiving, Clemmons Lee will again take out the photograph of her son holding a plate of food and smiling. She’ll place it before an empty chair, and fix her son a plate. 

“I often ask God to show me my purpose,” Clemmons Lee says. “For right now, this is where he’s got me.”