Hamilton County breaks ground on Victims Memorial Park

HAMILTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WDEF) – Hamilton County finally broke ground for the new Victims Memorial Park on Monday.  

The Victims Memorial Park is located at the Riverpark at Riverpoint on Amnicola Highway.

“I think today is a solemn day. The parents of many victims were here. They feel heard and understood. We join them as a community and their mourning, so we set aside this beautiful part of our community as a never-ending memorial,” said Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp. 

The Victims Memorial Park will pay tribute to murder victims from Hamilton County.  

Hamilton County Commissioner Greg Beck believes the park will even serve as a way to care for grieving families.  

“Every year there is going to be a ceremony. We will honor the families who lost kids during that year, we will call the names for that year,” said Hamilton County Commissioner Greg Beck. “We will have, not necessarily a funeral, but a festival. We’ll just have a time that we can just come together and celebrate the lives of people that we have lost for that year.”

Hamilton County and Mothers of Murdered Sons have been working on the Victims Memorial Park for more than two years. 

Shannon Westmoreland with Mothers of Murdered Sons says she is grateful the park is coming to fruition. 

“We went to our commission, and we went to our mayor and asked for it, and with no question, we got it,” said Westmoreland. 

And when the Memorial Park is completed, Westmoreland hopes that one day the park will end gun violence. 

“Come see what is given, come see why we want to do this so that we can show love. If you give these young people something to do, if you get these young people somewhere to turn, they will know that they got somebody who cares,” said Westmoreland. “If they know somebody listens to them, then that is going to stop a lot of this senseless killing we have here.”