‘He don’t have a gun!’ Mom of mentally ill man yells during CMPD shooting
Video of a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police shooting in December shows more detail about what happened while police surrounded the home of a 29-year-old man in east Charlotte.
Bobby Morgan, 29, survived after CMPD officers shot him on Dec. 1. He was released from the hospital in early January and is recovering well physically, his mother Felicia Morgan told the Observer Friday, although he has been having nightmares about being shot.
Felicia Morgan can be heard in the background of the officers’ body camera videos. She arrived at the scene while armed officers were surrounding her son’s house.
“He don’t have a gun!” Felicia Morgan said, according to the body camera videos.
A few moments later, she can be heard saying her son has “mental issues.”
Felicia Morgan told the Observer in December that Bobby Morgan had been diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar disorder and a schizoaffective disorder. She said he had been keeping a job and living independently in the months before the shooting.
Four days after Morgan was shot, police said they had recovered a “replica blank-firing pistol” from the scene. The replica pistol made gunfire noises but fired no projectiles, police said.
When he was released from the hospital in early January, he was charged with two counts of communicating threats and one count of assault on a government official. His next court date is Monday.
The body camera videos from each of the three officers who shot Morgan were released to local activist Robert Dawkins, political director of the group Action NC, who filed a request for their release in December. The three videos contained nearly two hours of footage, which the Observer edited to create the single video published with this story.
Judge Karen Eady-Williams decided on Jan. 24 that they would be released over the objections of the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office and the officers’ defense lawyers.
The three officers who fired their guns during the shooting —Joshua Skipper, Edward Gonzalez and Derek Rud — are on paid administrative assignment while separate criminal and internal investigations are ongoing.
This story was originally published February 1, 2019 at 4:39 PM.
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