Howard Morgan, a former Chicago cop, was convicted of four counts of attempted murder today. The jury found him guilty even though a previous jury had found him innocent of all other charges related to the traffic stop in question and even though he had been shot 28 times by the four white police man.
The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police issued a statement praising the verdict and wrote “justice served” on their website.
Howard Morgan, a Chicago Police veteran, was off-duty as a detective for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad when he was stopped for driving the wrong way on a one-way street near 19th Street and Lawndale in the early morning hours of Feb. 21, 2005. When police tried to arrest him, prosecutors said, he pulled out his service Glock 9mm and started shooting.
Even though Morgan supposedly injured one of the four officers, he was shot 28 times by the other three.
In 2007, he was acquitted of charges of aggravated battery and discharging a weapon at a police officer. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the attempted murder charges so by law he was able to be retried.
Rosalind Morgan, the convicted cop’s wife said,
“[Morgan] had never been in trouble, no prior arrests, no drugs, no alcohol. Four white officers and one black Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad police man with his weapon on him — around the corner from our home — and he just decided to go crazy? No. That’s ludicrous,”
To Rosalind Morgan, the case has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with race.
“If they can do this and eliminate double jeopardy and your constitutional rights, then my God, I fear for every Afro-American — whether they be male or female — in this corrupt unjust system,”
Police have always said the whole incident was done by the book. It took Howard Morgan 7 months to recover from his wounds.
Do you think there is something weird about the police story in Howard Morgan’s arrest?
Watch a video on the incident.