In 2005, an African-American off-duty detective was shoot 28 times by four white Chicago police officers and lived to talk about it. But it is Howard Morgan, not the officers, who was convicted for attempted murder this past January.
SEE ALSO: Zimmerman’s New Attorney: ‘He’s Not A Racist?’
As the story goes, Morgan was was pulled over for driving the wrong way on a one-way street on Feb 21, 2005. It is what happened after the stop where the officers and Morgan’s accounts of what happened diverge, the Huffington Post reports.
According to police, Morgan opened fire with his service weapon when officers tried to arrest him, which caused them to shoot him 28 times. His family, however, very much doubts those claims.
“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,” Morgan’s wife, Rosalind Morgan, told the Sun-Times.
She was not the only person to doubt CPD‘s side of the story. A Change.org petition signed by more than 2,600 people called for all charges against Morgan to be dropped, and now Occupy Chicago is getting involved.
In the wake of the Trayvon Martin tragedy issues of authority, particularly the use of deadly force, have been at the forefront of primetime news debates. This week, police officers who shot and killed Kenneth Chamberlain in his White Plains, New York, apartment last November, will learn whether they will be charged with wrongdoing. In New Orleans, a rare jolt of justice rung from the south when five police officers were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for shooting innocent civilians during Hurricane Katrina.
LIKE NewsOne On Facebook To Stay Up On Black News Worldwide!
The officers who shot Morgan, however, will not face any jail time. Today he will be sentenced in Chicago. He faces 80 years in prison.
SEE ALSO:
