Ralph Ward wanted to earn a little extra money for his mom’s 70th birthday.
One day in November 2019, after working shifts at his two jobs so he could save up and throw her a nice party, he went to a liquor store on Nolensville Road. Minutes later, he didn’t know if he’d be alive to see her again.
Uniformed and plainclothes officers burst into the liquor store and ordered him to get on the ground. He complied. As a Black man, he had always tried to keep a straight-laced appearance, to use the right words, to hold down his corporate job so he could avoid situations like this.
“All of that was just completely out of the window that night,” Ward said in an interview in mid-January. “I knew that I was about to be the next hashtag in the Black Lives Matter movement,” Ward later said in a text.
He was booked into the Davidson County jail and bonded out early the next morning.
He knew he hadn’t done anything illegal. A judge dismissed his case after five months and several court dates when the prosecution didn’t show up, Ward said.