81-year-old was brutally attacked by co-worker with a shovel, sledgehammer

He worked 44 years at the same family-owned construction company in Northeast Washington. He started in demolition — breaking up sidewalks, tearing down walls and ripping out windows.

By the age of 81, Charles Gilbert Short Sr. drove a pickup truck delivering rented air compressors and other equipment to construction sites across the D.C. region.

“He loved his job,” said his daughter, Danita Short Williams, who lives in Maryland.

But in October, while he was working, a colleague upset over a request for a compressor brutally attacked him with a shovel and sledgehammer at the Washington Air Compressor Rental Co. in the Eckington neighborhood, according to D.C. police. Short died months later.

On Thursday, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Maryland ruled his death a homicide, and authorities said they are consulting with prosecutors to upgrade charges filed seven month ago against the 62-year-old suspect, Vincent Hemphill, who had worked for the company for 30 years.

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Short, who lived in Maryland, is listed as the city’s 62nd homicide victim of 2024 — and the oldest.

“Everybody out at the construction sites knew him,” said Bob Robertson, 71, Short’s co-worker and friend. “And he knew everybody. They loved it when he came to their job to deliver equipment. He was a lovely man.”

Robertson said Short had no desire to retire from the company, which was founded in 1931 and run by the same family for three generations with locations in Virginia and Maryland in addition to D.C.

“He didn’t want to leave,” Robertson said of his friend.

Short was a half-hour into his workday Oct. 12 when he needed an air compressor — used to power a variety of tools and equipment — to deliver to a construction site, police said.

Short made his request to his manager, who used a loudspeaker to summon Hemphill, according to an arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court. Workers told police that Hemphill didn’t act right away “and continued sweeping as he normally does things at his own pace.”

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Police said the manager made a second announcement over the loudspeaker, again requesting the air compressor.

The affidavit says that “infuriated the defendant.” Police allege Hemphill attacked Short and two other workers with a shovel, and when that was wrested away from him, he continued to hit his co-workers with a sledgehammer, they allege.

When the first responding police officer arrived, Hemphill said, “I did it,” the affidavit says. Police arrested him and charged him with two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and assault with intent to kill. Hemphill has been detained pending trial and could now face more serious charges. His attorney declined to comment.

Efforts to reach the head of the company Friday were unsuccessful.

Short, called Charlie by his co-workers, loved to cook and watch TV shows as varied as “Gunsmoke” and “60 Minutes,” and he listened to politics on the radio as he made deliveries in a pickup truck.

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Williams, 56, said her father “took great pride getting up every morning and being on time for work” but also loved his family.

He met his wife, Brenda, one night in the late 1960s when she walked into the Moonlight Inn in Waldorf, Md., and he was playing the drums in a jazz band. They married and had daughter Danita and, 10 months later, a son, Charles Short Jr., who lives in Atlanta. His wife died about a decade ago at the age of 66. They had three grandchildren.

“He bragged about his grandchildren’s accomplishments to everyone who crossed his path,” Williams said. She said one grandson works for the D.C. Board of Education, another just graduated from college, and his granddaughter teaches English and has a master’s degree in social work.

Williams said the attack left Short blinded and recovering in four hospitals or rehabilitation centers before he died Jan. 22.

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“His love was unconditional,” his daughter said, “and I knew one day he would forgive the man who killed him.”

At the hospitals, Williams said, he thanked the nurses, doctors and staff, who she said fell in love with him. When he first arrived at the intensive care unit, he made a single request to the doctors: “Please save me because I love my grandchildren,” Williams said.

For the three months he remained hospitalized, he wanted to put the attack behind him.

“He was looking forward to returning back to work,” his daughter said.

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