DA: Police justified in killing shotgun-wielding man in New Kensington

Police who fatally shot a man wielding a shotgun in New Kensington in March were justified in the killing, Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck ruled Friday.

Marc Morgan, 62, of Upper Burrell, threatened to shoot Black people March 13 and refused to put down the shotgun, lobbing expletives at police who responded to the city’s Parnassus area. He was shot four times.

“This was a tense and evolving situation where the officers were required to make a split-second decision,” Peck said.

Three officers fired seven rounds. Police from New Kensington, Arnold and Lower Burrell were present. Peck would not identify the officers at the request of their respective chiefs. He would not say which departments employ the officers who fired their weapons.

Police chiefs in New Kensington and Arnold previously said each department had two officers on paid administrative leave after the shooting.

Morgan’s twin sister, Marci Morgan Morr, said her brother struggled with mental illness and wasn’t feeling like himself because of the amount of medication he was prescribed. He was walking to Mt. Vernon to meet his girlfriend to get a ride home after leaving his truck at Ross Auto Body in New Kensington for repairs.

“He was a very smart individual, he just had problems,” Morgan Morr said.

She didn’t believe that he would intentionally target Black people.

“He was a good man with a lot of mental problems, and that’s just a sad thing,” she said. “He was not a racist and he had mental illness and he was trying to walk home.”

In a report released Friday, Peck said Morgan dropped his truck off at the repair shop and he removed a 12-gauge shotgun from it. He was seen walking on Fourth Street with the weapon and asked a person near the Normandy Bar if they had seen any Black people because he wanted to kill them.

That information was relayed to Westmoreland 911 and responding officers, Peck said.

Police repeatedly asked Morgan to drop the gun while Morgan held the weapon and responded with expletives, at one point coming within 15 feet of the officers, according to the report. He appeared to drop the weapon and officers fired a Taser, which Peck said had no effect.

Morgan continued pointing the gun at them, using expletives and walking in their direction when police shot him in the thorax, abdomen and both arms.

The shooting came nine minutes after the 911 call was made, according to the report.

The weapon was unloaded. Morgan was carrying six rounds and a revolver on his waist loaded with five rounds, the report said. He was licensed to carry a firearm.

Police responding to the scene considered the threat a “high priority,” Peck said.

”It is clear that Marc Morgan’s behavior was sufficiently alarming that an ordinary citizen reported to law enforcement Morgan’s carrying of a shotgun and making deadly threats to Black individuals,” he wrote in the report.

His threats and actions in refusing to put down the weapon became a “challenge to the officers and an escalation of the potential for violence,” which meant police or others could be in danger, Peck said.

“Marc Morgan’s death was undoubtedly a tragedy under the circumstances,” he said. “However, the officers responding to the situation cannot be faulted in that they made a significant effort to deescalate the violence by ordering Morgan to disarm, confronting him with overwhelming force and using a Taser upon Morgan.”

He worked for 37 years at Family Services of Western Pennsylvania, overseeing group homes for the mentally challenged and abused children, according to his obituary. Morgan was artistic, “by the book” and liked to hunt and fish, his sister said.

“He was an outdoorsman,” she said.