Nicholas Ervan

Nicholas Ervan Jr., 33, a Black man, was killed in Detroit on December 11, 2011, his name joining the city’s long and grim roll of lives cut short that year. The location tied to his death was the intersection of East Davison and Hasse, a small crossroad on the east side where routine streets can turn suddenly into a crime scene and, for families, into a permanent before-and-after.

What survives publicly about the moments around his death is sparse: a date, a place, and the fact that h ...