{"id":18199,"date":"2013-06-09T14:11:27","date_gmt":"2013-06-09T18:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=18199"},"modified":"2013-06-09T14:11:27","modified_gmt":"2013-06-09T18:11:27","slug":"black-man-sentenced-to-50-years-for-stealing-ribs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2013\/06\/black-man-sentenced-to-50-years-for-stealing-ribs\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Man Sentenced to 50 Years for Stealing Ribs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Willie<\/a>
Willie Smith Ward<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Willie Smith Ward of Waco, TX was sentenced to 50 years for tucking a rack of \u00a0ribs under his shirt inside of a local grocery store in September 2011.\u00a0The jurors in Waco\u2019s 19th State District Court were less than impressed with 43-year-old Ward\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0previous\u00a0five felony\u00a0convictions<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0for burglary, attempted robbery, aggravated assault, leaving the scene of an accident and possession of cocaine\u00a0and four misdemeanor convictions. The jury\u00a0recommended that Ward be sentenced to 50 years in prison as a habitual criminal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jurors took two minutes on Wednesday to convict Ward on robbery charges and about an hour to decide his punishment, according to<\/span>\u00a0a local news website<\/span><\/a><\/span>. His conviction for stealing the $35 ribs was considered a robbery after he threatened a store employee who followed him out to the parking lot and interrogated him about the bulge in his shirt.\u00a0The employee testified that he asked Ward what was under the shirt and the slab of ribs fell to the ground. He asked Ward what else he was hiding and Ward said, \u201cI got a knife<\/em>.\u201d The employee added that Ward further threatened him by stating:\u00a0\u201cIf you don\u2019t leave me alone, I\u2019ll show you what I got.<\/em>\u201d At that point, Ward ran off.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis verdict shows that the citizens of this county will not tolerate a continued disrespect and disregard for other people and their property<\/em>,\u201d said Assistant District Attorney J.R. Vicha, who prosecuted Ward with Chris Bullajian. \u201cPeople who choose to do so will be dealt with seriously and appropriately<\/em>.\u201d Ward\u2019s sentence and conviction comes just months after the\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0U.S. Sentencing Commission released a report<\/span><\/a>\u00a0revealing that Black men\u00a0received sentences that were a whopping 19.5 percent longer than white men found guilty for similar crimes\u00a0between December 2007 and September 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Texas\u2019 neighboring state, Oklahoma, a 17-year-old Caucasian kid decided to consume alcohol and drive home. Unfortunately, he struck a tree and killed his 16-year-old passenger and best friend.<\/span>\u00a0The judge sentenced him to 10 years of church every Sunday for his DUI manslaughter conviction<\/span><\/a><\/span>. This will not be the outcome for Dallas Cowboy player Josh Brent,<\/span>\u00a0who killed his teammate in a car crash while under the influence<\/span><\/a><\/span>, nor will it be for any other young Black boy or man under the influence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Tyler<\/a>
Tyler Alred<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The mass incarceration of our Black men is evident, especially in racist states like Texas.\u00a0We can not allow Ward\u2019s punishment to go unchallenged.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Fuente<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Willie Smith Ward of Waco, TX was sentenced to 50 years for tucking a rack of \u00a0ribs under his shirt inside of a local grocery..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,166,181,185,97],"tags":[357],"class_list":["post-18199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discrimination","category-government","category-labor","category-prisons","category-us-news","tag-racism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/willie-smith-ward-of-waco-tx-was-sentenced-to-50-years-for-stealing-ribs.png?fit=294%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}