Omaha teenager beats, kills neighbor with baseball bat to steal ‘faster’ car, police say

A stolen white Kia sedan sat last fall near an Orchard Hill duplex that served as an unsupervised revolving door shelter for missing or delinquent Omaha teenagers.

On October 31, a group of youths were trying to jump-start the dead car battery, borrowing tools from helpful neighbors. One of them was Daniel Price, 62, who let the kids use a trickle charger and powered extension cord from his home near 38th and Hamilton streets.

When efforts to fix the car failed, the teenagers came up with another plan: rob Price and steal his black Nissan sedan.

Why Nissan? Because “this car is faster than the Kia,” 15-year-old Joshua Hammond Jr. later told authorities, Omaha police Lt. Kara Platt testified at a preliminary hearing Tuesday.

Hammond blindsided Price while he was talking to another teenager and threw a Louisville metal ring at Price’s head. Price was unconscious and bleeding for up to two hours until another neighbor noticed and called 911. He died about two weeks later.

“(Price) was just a neighborhood guy who was out there trying to help these kids,” Platt said.

Hammond has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony. Four other teenagers also face charges in connection with Price’s death: Anterio Parker, 16, is charged as an adult with murder, and three 13-year-olds face accessory charges in juvenile court. Under state law, children under 14 cannot be charged as adults and must go to juvenile court, which has jurisdiction over them until they turn 19.

Platt said the Kia the teenagers had been working on had a broken back window and had been reported stolen from Lincoln a few days earlier. Some Kia models are highly susceptible to theft, he said, but in subsequent interviews no teenager admitted to stealing the Kia.

The teenagers spent time at the duplex near 38th and Charles streets, a “flophouse” of sorts, Platt said. The neighbors were familiar with the teenagers. A neighbor lent them bridge cables that afternoon, between 1 and 2 p.m. When the group was unsuccessful in starting the car, they decided to rob Price.

Hammond, his 13-year-old girlfriend and a 13-year-old boy walked up to Price’s house with a red and pink baseball bat. As the boy distracted Price and started a conversation with him, Hammond swung the bat around like he was hitting a baseball and hit him on the right side of the head, Platt said.

Hammond later told detectives he thought he only hit Price once, but that he “went out” after the first hit, Platt testified.

Price fell to the ground and the teenagers searched his pockets. They found keys that belonged to an old truck, not the Nissan.

The trio returned to the duplex, where Parker took the bat, wrapped it in a blanket, and put it under the bed in the basement. Parker then gave the bat and keys to other teenagers, who hid the bat in a sewer drain and dumped the keys near Franklin Elementary.

Officers were later led to the location of the bat by one of the teenagers’ sisters, who was ultimately not charged. Price’s blood was found on the bat.

A neighbor noticed Price lying in the grassy field and called 911 shortly after 4 p.m. Price suffered facial and head injuries with swelling on the right side of his head and blood all over. He died on November 12 of blunt force trauma to the head.

Platt cried as she recalled the autopsy a few days later, which she attended.

“I’ve been on (the force) for 21 years,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I just wanted to be there for Mr. Price.”