It started, like too many of these stories do now, with a car and an ICE agent who says he felt threatened.
Back in February, during Operation Metro Surge, 35-year-old ICE agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. was driving an unmarked SUV along Highway 62 in Minnesota. Traffic was backed up, and instead of sitting in it, he took the shoulder. Another driver moved over, apparently trying to slow him down. What should have been a moment of frustration turned into something else entirely. Prosecutors say Morgan pulled up alongside the vehicle and pointed his gun at the driver and passenger while both cars were still moving.
The people in the other car weren’t even migrants. So essentially, the big, tough ICE agent thought he was important enough to drive like a douchebag on the shoulder, then pulled his gun when another driver tried to call him out on it. While both vehicles were in motion.
So here we are again.
We have another ICE agent who says he thought a car was being used as a weapon against him. That explanation is starting to become old hat. Every time one of these incidents happens, the same justification shows up. The vehicle becomes the threat, and the gun becomes the response. The story always gets framed like a split-second life-or-death decision. Rather than the lapse of judgment it always is.
Keep in mind, this wasn’t a barricaded suspect during a standoff. This was in moving traffic.
There’s always someone who shrugs at a detail like that and says, What’s the big deal? Cops draw guns from cars all the time. They’ve seen it on TV. That’s just it. It’s TV. This isn’t. Drawing a weapon while driving a moving vehicle isn’t some dramatic action sequence. It’s reckless beyond belief. One bad bump in the road or one twitch of the hand, and that weapon goes off. Then you’re not talking about an assault charge anymore. You’re talking about a blood-spattered windshield.
According to investigators, neither Morgan nor the agent riding with him reported the incident to a supervisor. That’s not a paperwork issue. That’s a breakdown in accountability at the most basic level. If an agent pulls a gun on civilians and no one files a report, then the only reason anyone knows about it is that the people on the receiving end called 911.
Now there’s a nationwide warrant out for Morgan’s arrest issued by Hennepin County prosecutors.
And as of the time I’m writing this, he still hasn’t been arrested, nor has he turned himself in.
Then there’s the part that keeps coming back, no matter how many times this happens. The pattern isn’t just the incidents themselves. It’s what follows them. The explanations, the delays, the silence, the lack of immediate consequences. You can call this case a milestone if you’d like, and prosecutors have. Maybe it is. Maybe, this time, it will finally lead somewhere.
But right now, it looks like what we’ve seen before.
An agent draws a gun in a situation that never should have escalated that far. The justification leans on fear and perceived threat. The system moves slowly, if at all. And the public is left watching another case where accountability feels optional.
At some point, this is no longer coincidence.
Thanks to Lady Gray for the tip.
(Sources)
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