Howard MorganI've been reading about Howard Morgan. He was a black off duty police officer who was pulled over and eventually shot 28 time (21 times in the back) by 4 white police officers. Amazingly, after 7 months in the hospital, Morgan survived. And what happened to the men who shot him? Nothing. But this January, Morgan was convicted of 4 counts of attempted murder against the cops.

The strange thing about this case is that I haven't found anything but stories that read something like, "According to his wife..." I'm willing to believe that Morgan did something to deserve 28 bullets. We know he had a gun. But the case that Morgan's wife makes is much more compelling: the officers didn't believe Morgan when he told them he was a cop, they saw his gun, they panicked and started shooting. When they learned that he was a copy, had no criminal history, and would likely live, they concocted the story.

(Morgan's wife claims that her husband never fired the gun. She points to the fact that there was no gun powder residue on his hands. I think that happens. It seems much more likely that Morgan, like most people, fired back after the police started firing at him.)

Here is a video that gives the basic details:


This case brings up broader issues of justice. If Morgan hadn't been a cop, would it have been acceptable to riddle his body with bullets? The truth is that police are out of control. And it really doesn't matter if the police were right to fire on Morgan. We know that police commonly do make up stories to avoid the embarrassment of, for example, killing a woman with a potato perler. We saw this most clearly in the Danziger Bridge shootings.

But somehow 21 bullets in the back doesn't sound like a fire fight. It sounds like target practice.