"But when this hit me, it tore me up, to know what happened to my son," said Leticia Ware, Dominque Ware's mother.
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Ware's family said 33-year-old Ware was working as a security guard at the time of the robbery and shooting, but they said he was also much more than that.
"Ask anybody in Los Angeles about Dominique Ware, they all call him Bubba, or Domo," said his father, George Ware. "He was the best thing in the world. He wasn't only my son, he was my friend."
The people closest to Dominique Ware said he was a shining light in his community and that you rarely saw him without a smile. They said he loved working and mentoring kids and worked as a coach and a teacher.
"He wasn't just a security guard," said Ware's sister, Barbara Goodwin. "A lot of the captions out there say 'security guard murdered in robbery', that's not who he was. He's a hero. He was an amazing person and we want everybody to know that."
His other sister, Marlena Berry, said she forgives the people who did this to her little brother and just wants justice.
"He was a tutor, a mentor to the kids," said Berry. "To the same kids that took his life, that's who he mentored and I know if they knew him, they would've loved him, respected him, just like every other little kid did."
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Three people in connection with the incident have been arrested and one is still on the loose. An LAPD homicide investigation remains ongoing.
A gofundme has been set up to help ware's family with funeral costs.
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