Richard Ward’s video is another instance of law enforcement officers being negligent and misusing the authority granted to them by the state. Richard was an innocent individual who a Pueblo County sheriff’s deputy fatally shot.
A year ago, Richard was shot and killed outside a middle school after he mistakenly entered the wrong car during school pickup.
The deputy, Charles McWhorter, pulled the 32-year-old Richard Ward from his mother’s car outside Liberty Point International Middle School in Pueblo West on Feb. 22, 2022.
Ward placed something in his mouth while McWhorter spoke to him, as depicted in the body camera footage released by attorneys representing Ward’s family.
Ward and McWhorter briefly grappled on the ground before McWhorter shot Ward three times in the chest at point-blank range, as shown in the video.
The footage shows that neither McWhorter nor another deputy on the scene, Cassandra Gonzales, provided medical aid to Ward as he lay bleeding on the ground.
The video depicts that McWhorter did not issue orders to Ward before pulling him from the car and did not give a warning that he was going to use deadly force.
Ward died on the ground outside the school as students wearing backpacks walked past. The incident lasted two minutes, from first contact to shots fired.
“Richard Ward’s death is a profound injustice, an unarmed, cooperative citizen shot and killed in front of his mother by a Pueblo County sheriff’s deputy. This was nothing short of a state-sanctioned murder of a citizen who should not have been even arrested, let alone killed in broad daylight,” said Darold Killmer, the Ward family’s attorney.
In October, Tenth Judicial District Attorney Jeff Chostner decided not to prosecute the deputies in connection to Ward’s death because he found they justifiably feared for their lives and acted accordingly.
In interviews with investigators, McWhorter stated that Ward was grabbing his duty belt and he feared Ward would take his gun.
The deputy approached Ward after a call was made about a suspicious man attempting to open car doors.
The situation escalated when Ward placed an anti-anxiety medication in his mouth, which McWhorter mistook for something else. He seized Ward by his jacket and pushed him to the ground.
Was Justice Served for Richard Ward?
A year after Ward’s tragic killing, his family filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday, February 21st, against the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office.
“It’s just shattered this whole family,” Kristy Ward Stamp, Ward’s mother, expressed at a news conference Tuesday afternoon as her attorneys filed the civil lawsuit against Pueblo County.
The family is upset with what the video reveals and how the sheriff’s office presented the narrative after the shooting.
Richard’s family filed a lawsuit in hopes of obtaining justice for him and preventing such incidents from occurring in the future.
