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SUIT CLAIMS OFFICERS "EXECUTED" MERCER MAN - Two West Virginia State troopers are being accused of executing a fleeing Greenbrier County man who had previously threatened to expose illegal police activities, according to a lawsuit filed in Kanawha Circuit Court.
Joshua Phillip Morgan, of Ronceverte, was killed in a police shooting in 2001 in Monroe County. State Police responded to the area after hearing radio traffic that a suspect had fired on a Monroe County deputy during a traffic stop.
During the search, then-Senior Trooper V.S. Deeds and then-Sgt. T.D. Bradley spotted Morgan coming up a path, according to statements they gave to investigators the night of the shooting. They said they shouted a warning to Morgan, but he crouched and fired three shots at them with a handgun before taking cover in the brush.
The officers returned fire â Bradley with a shotgun and Deeds with an AR-15 rifle and killed Morgan after a brief shootout. Both officers said they never fired their pistols.
The lawsuit, filed by Morgan's mother Sharon Carr, alleges that Bradley and Deeds killed the 21-year-old by shooting him between the eyes at close range with a large-caliber handgun.
The lawsuit cites a report by John T. Cooper, a forensic pathologist from California, who concluded that Morgan died as a result of "multiple bullet wounds to the head, administered at close range by one or more handguns," not the weapons the officers say they used.
Cooper's report claims that he examined Morgan's body at the Morgan Funeral Home in Lewisburg following the shooting.
"Three of these injuries [to the head] exhibit characteristics of contact wounds. This injury pattern indicates purposeful execution of a defenseless victim," the report states.
"Prior to execution, the victim had been disarmed, if in fact he was ever armed, and he had been incapacitated by shotgun fire."
An autopsy by the West Virginia deputy chief medical examiner concluded that Morgan "died as a result of multiple (undetermined) shotgun wounds of the head, back, abdomen, and upper and lower extremities."
A State Police investigation into Morgan's death concluded that Bradley and Deeds acted appropriately.
Bradley is now a lieutenant with the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Charleston, and Deeds, now a sergeant, is the detachment commander in Lewisburg, said State Police Lt. D.B. Hess of the Beckley detachment.
Carr's lawsuit alleges that Morgan had knowledge that police officers possessed and sold illegal drugs, gave alcohol to underage females in exchange for sexual favors and sexually assaulted underage girls.
When Morgan threatened to disclose this information to members of the Drug Enforcement Administration, he was arrested, beaten and threatened by Deeds and others on June 20, according to the suit.
According to a mental hygiene petition filed by Carr, she believed that her son was addicted to drugs and/or alcohol and posed a threat to himself and others.
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