David Chandler, a 26-year-old Madison resident, was pulled from his sedan and beaten by a posse of hungry youngsters while driving down Wilshire Lane Tuesday.
Janine Thompson, loving mother of one of the young’uns, witnessed the assault.
“He was driving down our street playing the ice-cream song, the one that goes ‘dada-dum dum dee dee lada-dadadada,’ and my son Timmy, bless his soul, came inside asking for money. I gave him two dollars, I haven’t seen an ice-cream truck in years, Timmy was just so happy, so excited.”
Eight-year-old Timmy joined the other neighborhood kids until-so-recently frolicking about, forming a circle around Chandler’s vehicle.
“I went out to the porch to look, but it was really just an old, crusty Chevy Cavalier, not an ice-cream truck,” said Thompson. “At first it was only my Timmy and Susie from across the street, but then the other children appeared … Robby, Josie, Monica … he stopped the car and rolled down the window.”
The children were crushed to find Chandler was not, in fact, the ice-cream man.
“I saw that beautiful smile, Timmy’s beautiful smile vanish. That glint in my Timmy’s eyes was gone … it was just, just rage,” said Thompson.
Before Chandler could flee, the pack of an estimated twelve pre-adolescents dragged him from the car.
“I just kept watching … I couldn’t look away. Who would do that? Build up kids’ hopes, just to smash them on the ground and melt them, like a double-fudge dipped vanilla swirl cone dropped in the street on a hot summer day?” said Thompson.
Incident report excerpts offer gruesome details but little sympathy.
“Chandler suffered a combination of adorable blunt trauma and moderate asphyxiation. Bruises on the torso and back match up with an orange wiffle bat found at the scene. A glittery pink hula hoop was used to choke him. A full-body MRI discovered several quarters, nickels and dimes ingested by Chandler in the struggle, as far down as the lower esophageal sphincter,” said the report.
It was later found the CD playing in Chandler’s car was a mixtape opening with the 2006 hit “Chain Hang Low” by Jibbs.
