MAN KILLED BY POLICE WAS SHOT 6 TIMES, FAMILY SAYS

Medical Examiner and Police Not Releasing Details

Official details remain sparse, but a man killed Tuesday night by a
narcotics officer during an undercover drug buy in Ypsilanti was
apparently shot multiple times as he ran from police. The family of
David Antjuan Ware, 29, of Ypsilanti, said he was shot six times, at
least once in the back. Several witnesses say they heard multiple
gunshots as police chased a man from the parking lot of the Keg Party
Store on North Huron Street onto Arcade Street, where he eventually
collapsed.

State Police Lt. Garth Burnside said Ware was fatally shot by an
unidentified officer from LAWNET, the Livingston and Washtenaw
Narcotics Enforcement team, after the undercover drug buy somehow went
bad. Another man, Burnside said in a press release, was injured when
he was hit by a police car.

Family identified that man as Maurice Moore, 25, of Ypsilanti
Township, who was treated at a hospital and released to police. He was
expected to be charged with unspecified crimes at the Washtenaw County
Jail today.

Burnside refused to release further information. Washtenaw County
Deputy Chief Assistant Prosecutor Steve Hiller said he would not
comment on an open investigation.

A neighbor who lives across the street from the party store told a
reporter he heard multiple shots, looked outside and saw a man
kneeling in the parking lot and a car peeling out of the lot. The
neighbor, who would only identify himself as Mike, said the man fell
flat onto the ground, then got up and ran across Huron Street onto
Arcade Street with what he later learned were undercover police
officers in pursuit.

On Arcade Street, a single-block side street running from North Huron
to North Adams Street, a woman and her 14-year-old son said they heard
the shots at the party store. They hit the floor, the woman said, but
then got to their knees and looked out the windows.

She and her son said at least two undercover police officers chased
Ware up the street. The teen said Ware shouted something, then he
heard the police yell for the man to stop. Then one officer, he said,
fired repeatedly at Ware as he continued to run.

Merlin Hargrove, Moore's mother and a cousin to Ware, said Ware was
engaged to be married, and has six children. She said her son is
married and has a 2-year-old daughter.

Michigan Department of Corrections records indicate Ware served time
from 2000 to 2003 for delivery of cocaine and from 1997 to 1998 for
unlawful use of a motor vehicle.

Washtenaw County Medical Examiner Bader Cassin this morning said that
police asked him not to release any information from the autopsy he
conducted Wednesday.

But Rhonda Witty, a cousin of Ware's, said Wednesday that her family
was told at the morgue that Ware was shot twice in the chest, twice in
the leg, once in the groin and once in the back, in a shoulder blade.

"He probably was involved in a drug deal. And there is no way I
condone the fact that he may have played a part in this," Witty said.

But, she added, shooting Ware six times seemed excessive. She said
that if tests indicate Ware had or fired a gun, "then I can
understand." But failing that, she said, she wants an explanation.
The family, she said, "would just like to know what happened. I'm not
condoning what David did. We just want to know.