Jury Convicts Man in Killing of Chicago Police Officer

By Madeline Buckley

Source Chicago Tribune

A jury on Tuesday convicted a man accused of shooting and killing Chicago police Officer Ella French and injuring her partner after the panel spent days viewing harrowing body-camera footage and hearing emotional testimony from police officers and other witnesses.

Emonte Morgan, 23, was found guilty of killing French, and of attempted murder for seriously injuring Officer Carlos Yanez Jr. and an attempted murder count in connection with Officer Joshua Blas during a traffic stop on Aug 7, 2021.

The verdict was read to a hushed courtroom with a heavy presence of deputies lining the aisles. Judge Ursula Walowski warned observers to remain calm and silent. Afterward, family members of French, Yanez and Blas hugged and cried. Yanez and Blas were both present for the verdict.

After the verdict, Cmdr. Bryan Spreyne, who supervised French, Yanez and Blas, said it has been a “trying week” for their family and the Police Department.

“We all hurt through this incident,” Spreyne said.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said that a “just verdict” was rendered.

“We are incredibly gratified by the jury’s verdict today but it is difficult to feel anything other than sadness about the senseless murder of a Chicago police officer in the line of duty,” Foxx said.

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Attorneys delivered closing arguments to a full courtroom at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, presenting dueling interpretations of evidence aired to the jury since last Tuesday. The jury began deliberating around 3:30 p.m., deliberating for less than four hours.

Prior to the arguments, Walowski denied a request from defense attorneys to instruct the jurors on a possible finding of a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

French, 29, was gunned down after she and her partners around 63rd Street and Bell Avenue pulled over a vehicle occupied by Morgan, his brother, Eric Morgan, and a woman Eric Morgan was dating. The shooting rattled the city and Police Department, and her police work elicited praise in many corners across the city, from officers she worked with to victims she helped.

The jury was sworn in on Feb. 26 and began hearing testimony the next day.

Assistant State’s Attorney Emily Stevens began closing arguments with a display of the two bulletproof vests Yanez and French wore the night they were shot.

“These vests didn’t stop any bullets,” she said, “not because they didn’t work, but because the defendant Emonte Morgan didn’t aim there.”

Prosecutors sought to contradict assertions from the defense that the shooting was not intentional, but rather a byproduct of a struggle between Yanez and Morgan, arguing the shooting was purposeful.

Stevens said that Morgan exited the vehicle with a gun in his waistband, rather than attempting to hide it under the seat in the car.

“This defendant left (Yanez) laying on his back looking up toward the sky drowning in his own blood,” Stevens said. “He fired a bullet into (French’s) skull, fracturing it and breaking it in several places.”

Defense attorneys, though, said that during the struggle after the traffic stop, Yanez was so close to Morgan that it’s difficult to discern what happened. Hodel said the defense attorneys were not suggesting that Yanez or French were responsible for the shooting, as it’s uncontested that their weapons didn’t leave their holsters, but said her client’s intent is unproven.

“Because of the position of Yanez on top of Monty, we don’t see what happens. You can’t make a determination whether he did that intentionally or not,” Assistant Public Defender Jennifer Hodel said.

Hodel also argued that prosecutors did not prove that Morgan fired shots at Blas, contending there weren’t enough shell casings from Morgan’s gun. She argued that those found outside the vehicle were from the shooting that wounded French and Yanez.

“If there had been additional cartridge casings from Monty’s gun, they would have found them,” she said. “They did not.”

Rebutting the arguments, Assistant State’s Attorney Scott Clark said that a firearms expert testified that the gun had a safety and did not have an unusually light trigger.

“You’re being asked to believe that during this struggle for the gun in the car, the gun somehow went off seven times,” he said.

Prosecutors have said that Emonte Morgan fired multiple shots at the officers after French and two fellow officers stopped a gray SUV driven by Eric Morgan. Emonte Morgan was also shot during the confrontation.

Body camera footage from French, Yanez and Blas, who were working together that night, showed the officers pull over the SVU and begin engaging with the occupants of the car, noting an open container of alcohol and asking them to turn off the music and hand over the keys.

At one point, Eric Morgan took off running and Blas pursued him until, he testified, he heard gunshots back toward the crime scene. Footage from Yanez and French’s body cameras showed a close-up scuffle before gunshots sound. French runs around the car to help her partner, according to the footage.

Eric Morgan, in October was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the shooting.

The footage captured Blas’s return to the scene, and his anguished cries yelling the names of his partners. Prosecutors said Morgan shot at him, so he returned fire and struck him.

“French … French!” Blas yelled when he arrived, according to the footage.

Jurors also watched footage that captured the bloody aftermath of the shooting, with officers carrying French and Yanez into separate vehicles, attempting CPR and rushing to the hospital.

Yanez took the stand last week and testified that he remembers the beginning of the traffic stop, then nothing until shortly after he was shot.

“I heard gunfire right above me, and then I heard Josh screaming Yanez! Yanez! French!,” Yanez testified.

French’s mother, Elizabeth French, also told the jury about her final phone call with her daughter.

Ella had called her mother to pass the time during the drive to her district, she told jurors Tuesday. Elizabeth French then ended the call as she always did: that she loves her, to be careful and to be safe.

“She liked to call me on her way to work,” French testified, smiling through tears.

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