Truck driver charged with involuntary manslaughter in crash that killed CMPD officer
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Officer Mia Goodwin death and funeral
Funeral arrangements are set for a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer who died in a wreck involving two semi-trucks on Interstate 85 on Dec. 22. Officer Mia Goodwin, 33, was killed and three other officers were injured.
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A truck driver has been charged in connection with the crash that killed a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Wednesday morning.
At 3:39 a.m., two semi-trucks collided with each other on Interstate 85 South, sending both trucks into CMPD vehicles that were assisting State Highway Patrol with traffic for an earlier wreck near W.T. Harris Boulevard.
Officer Mia Goodwin, 33, was killed and three officers were injured.
Police on Thursday said Daniel Leon Morgan, 50, was driving a 2020 Volvo VNL truck and failed to reduce speed and move left to an open lane on the highway. Morgan’s truck struck four CMPD vehicles and Goodwin, police said in a news release.
Morgan was taken to a hospital after the wreck, police told the Observer.
Public records show Morgan lives in High Point.
He is charged with involuntary manslaughter, misdemeanor death by vehicle, failure to reduce speed and felony failure to move over for stopped emergency vehicles. He also was cited for knowingly displaying a fictitious registration plate.
Morgan was not impaired, police said. He is in the custody of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, police said.
Court records show Morgan pleaded guilty in 2015 to driving without a commercial vehicle operator license in Iredell County. He paid a fine but was not given jail time. From that same case, he was cited with a federal safety inspection violation, but the charge was dismissed under a plea deal, public records show.
In 2008 and 2014, Morgan was cited for speeding but in both cases had the charges reduced to improper equipment, court records show. Over the five-year period studied, more than 75 drivers in North Carolina who had extreme-speeding charges reduced or dismissed later became involved in fatal crashes, the Observer reported in its “Death in the Fast Lane” series.
In a statement late Thursday, Morgan’s attorney extended his condolences to Goodwin’s family.
“I can’t begin to imagine the devasting (sic) impact that this tragic accident will have on her husband and three young children,” Charlotte attorney Harold Cogdell Jr. said in an email. “There are no words that can express the extent of my sorrow.”
The driver of the other truck, a 2016 Freightliner, was transported to a hospital after his interview with detectives for an elevated heart rate, police said. It’s not known if that driver will face charges.
Goodwin joined CMPD in October 2015 and had just returned from maternity leave. She is survived by her husband Brenton, a Charlotte firefighter, and three children, ages 3, 1 and 4 months old.
Details about funeral arrangements have not been released. The local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police is accepting donations for her family, and two GoFundMe pages also have been set up for them.
Observer News Editor Anna Douglas contributed to this story.
This story was originally published December 23, 2021 at 10:39 AM.
