A former Wilmington police officer is convicted of four crimes related to a 2021 excessive use of force case.
Samuel Waters was found guilty Monday of felony Tampering With Public Records 1st Degree, Falsifying Business Records, Assault 3rd Degree, and Official Misconduct by a New Castle County jury.
The charges stem from an excessive force incident in September 2021.
A Delaware Dept. of Justice investigation began after footage of Waters showed him repeatedly forcing a man’s head against a plexiglass window, causing lacerations and bruising.
That investigation found that Waters regularly failed to turn in his body camera footage, lied in official documentation of the incident, and that 9 days prior he was involved in another excessive force incident where he used his nightstick to apply pressure on the back of a victim’s neck, pushing their face into the back of a vehicle and causing injuries.
When indicted, Waters faced a total of eight charges and up to 13 years in prison.
Waters will be sentenced by a Superior Court judge later this summer. He now faces up to 8 years in prison.
