Deborah Hemingway used to worry when her son, Dante, played high school football.
She watched his games ? he was a defensive back at Carver Vocational-Technical High School ? and fretted so much that he told her, “Mom, you need to stay home.”
When Dante decidedto become a police officer, Deborah worried, but all she said was that maybe he?d consider taking an FBI desk job.
But Dante Hemingway joined the Baltimore City Police Department. He was on duty last month when he was shot three times during an apparent robbery, police said.
Deborah Hemingway, who works the night shift at a factory, was watching television March 30 when she heard that a city police officer has been shot. Then a police officer showed up at her door. “I said, ?Don?t tell me that my boy got shot.? Then I broke down,” she said.
Hemingway is still listed in serious condition at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center.
He has undergone several surgeries, shakes his head sometimes when she talks to him, and once was able to ask for water, his mother said. It was such a relief, just hearing him say something. But he?s expected to recover, Deborah Hemingway said.
“I am so blessed that God gave him a second chance,” she said.
Indictments could come before Monday against Jobrey Lodge and Sherray Douglas, who?ve been arrested on attempted murder and armed robbery charges in the shooting.
Deborah Hemingway has spent about 12 hours every day since the shooting with Dante or in a tiny waiting room at the hospital.
Friends and family have come and sat with her, brought her food. His fellow officers are regular visitors, she said. And when he?s better, Deborah Hemingway figures she?ll just have to start worrying again.
“I really don?t want him to go back there, but you know him,” she said, with a laugh. “He will.”
