PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Thursday afternoon, Darnell Riddick and his family were busy serving home cooked Thanksgiving meals on Queen Street in Portsmouth to anyone who wanted one.
For the fourth year in a row, they held Dinner With The Riddicks on Thanksgiving to give back to his community.
“Five to six years ago I was homeless, living in a van with just me and my family. I said if I can get a chance to turn myself around, I’ll help any other people around," Riddick said.
Aside from the food, he also had clothes available and brought in a guest speaker well-known for his efforts to reduce gun violence.
That speaker was Bilal Muhammad, who lives in Norfolk and has a son who was shot and killed in July.
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This was his first Thanksgiving without his son.
“This is a very painful day. I was just explaining to my wife that we still have to push forward," Muhammad said. "We want to let the community know that this event here is necessary in terms of supporting the community and letting the community know that we care and the community needs this support more and more.”
The Thanksgiving came as an investigation was underway in Hampton after a 17-year-old was shot and killed Wednesday night while working at Rally's and as an investigation was underway in Suffolk after a 17-year-old was shot Thursday morning.
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Thursday morning, flowers had been placed by the drive-thru speaker at Rally’s in Hampton in remembrance of the 17-year-old killed there.
“I heard this sound. It was like all these sounds at once," said a woman, who said she didn't want to be identified because she was worried about her safety.
She said she was in the parking lot Wednesday night when the shooting happened.
“It was a screeching sound, like a car pulling away really fast, and a scream and another sound but i couldn't really make out the sound," the woman recalled. "I was definitely shocked. I’m very upset about it, and it bothers me.”
“We have to turn this table around," Muhammad emphasized. "Stop allowing our anger, our evilness to take control over our thinking and cause society to go in a way that we are going to hurt our youth."
Riddick said he does something different every year at his Thanksgiving event and decided to focus on gun violence in 2023.
“I met (Muhammad) at the laundry mat one time and I was telling him about my past experiences. He told me his son had been killed. That was way in Norfolk, but I thought ’Shoot, they get killed here, too.’” So I’m trying to bridge the gap from Norfolk to Portsmouth and we can do it together," Riddick said.
He plans to serve another community meal in 2024.
