David Ware (2016)

Melanie Cervantes
Digital graphic to accompany article, August 2016

“The killing of David Ware by an Ypsilanti Police Department officer in 2007 appears, in 2016, as just a variation of a standard and sick script that plays out with regularity.

Two officers pursued Ware as he fled from the scene of a drug bust outside The Keg Party Store. Ypsilanti Police Department Officer Uriah Hamilton fired the three shots from behind Ware, killing the unarmed 29 year old. The officer’s justification: “I thought he was turning around and reaching for a gun.”

All that officers found on his body was cash. No gun. And while Hamilton and the YPD would have preferred it be a dead man’s word against their own, a witness saw the killing go down from his home.

And the witness says Ware never turned around or reached for his belt.

The short of it is clear: White YPD officer Uriah Hamilton killed an unarmed black man, who presented no threat, by shooting him in the back.” Read more here