Three officers won’t face criminal charges in fatal 2019 Wichita shooting
No criminal charges will be filed against the three officers involved in a fatal shooting of a Wichita man in January 2019, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said Tuesday.
The investigation stems from a Jan. 10, 2019, shooting when three officers — two with the Wichita Police Department and one with the Kansas Department of Corrections — went to arrest 29-year-old Geoffrey Morris on parole violations. Bennett wrote in a 26-page report that the investigation is not to determine if proper use of force was used or address questions about a possible civil suit.
The report is “limited specifically to criminal liability of the Wichita Police Department officer ... who fatally shot Mr. Morris at 905 N. Main on January 10, 2019,” Bennett wrote. The question is whether the state can establish the person did not act reasonably under the circumstances cited in the Kansas stand your ground law, he added.
On Jan. 10, officers waited until Morris dropped off his girlfriend to meet with her probation officer at Sedgwick County Community Corrections, 905 N. Main.
“The officers knew Mr. Morris’s criminal history, knew he had carried a gun in the past and had expressed his unwillingness to return to prison,” Bennett wrote. “Based on this information, officers determined to approach Mr. Morris when he was alone.”
Morris was sitting in the driver’s seat of a Ford Focus when the two Wichita officers pulled in front of Morris and approached the car with their guns drawn. They ordered Morris out of the car.
The third officer parked “immediately behind Mr. Morris’s car to block his escape to the north.”
Officers ordered Morris out but he instead reversed into the law enforcement vehicle then drove toward the two officers ahead of him, Bennett wrote.
“Officer 1 said that based on his fear of being run over, and the fact that Geoffrey Morris had just rammed the vehicle of Officer 2, he fired three shots from his duty handgun into the car Mr. Morris was driving as it drove by him,” Bennett wrote. “Officer 1 said that as the red Ford fled, he saw one side of the vehicle rise up in the air and he believed Officer 3 had just been run over and he expected to see Officer 3’s body come out from under the vehicle. As a result, Officer 1 then fired one more shot at the vehicle Mr. Morris was driving. Officer 1 said he fired this last shot believing that Officer 3 was trapped under the vehicle.”
The officer said he later determined the car went in the air because it hit the curb, not the other officer.
Morris was hit three times: the head, right shoulder and a graze wound to the left shoulder, Bennett wrote. A handgun was removed from Morris’ shoulder holster, the report said.
Morris died in the hospital two days after the shooting.
“Officer 1 reasonably believed Mr. Morris posed an imminent lethal threat both to himself and Officer 3, and fired his weapon in response, causing the death of Mr. Morris,” Bennett wrote. “Under these circumstances, the officers are immune from prosecution under Kansas law.”
Morris had multiple felony warrants for his arrest, including two in Sedgwick County. The charges included aggravated robbery, aggravated battery and aggravated assault.
The three officers, seven witnesses and evidence from a crime scene investigation were used as evidence in Bennett’s decision. The crime scene analysis determined the officer who fatally shot Morris fired seven shots. The other officer outside of the vehicle fired 12.
“That guy coulda, coulda hit one of ‘em easily,” one witness was quoted saying in the report.
Contributing: Jason Tidd with The Eagle
This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 4:50 PM.