CHICAGO — The man convicted of killing Chicago Police Officer Ella French will spend the rest of his days behind bars, a Cook County judge ordered Wednesday.
In her ruling, Judge Ursula Walowski said that at every turn in the circumstances leading to French’s shooting death three years ago, Emonte Morgan had made fateful decisions.
“You made those decisions, you pulled that trigger,” Walowski said as she sentenced Morgan to a term of natural life for the 29-year-old officer’s murder and the attempted murder of Officer Carlos Yanez.
Morgan, 24, was also sentenced to 57 years for the attempted murder of Chicago Police Officer Joshua Blas, as well as seven years for unlawful use of a weapon.
In his statement to the court, Morgan was defiant. He questioned the legality of the police stop that led to the shooting and said he believed “the truth would come out.”
“Ella French was not murdered, she had an accidental death.” he told the judge, a reference to his defense at trial that the gun discharged during a struggle as he was being taken into custody. “We deserve justice. We not monsters at all.”
Walowski also ruled Wednesday against defense motions to set aside the jury’s verdict and to grant Morgan a new trial.
The hearing erupted in shouting when family members were given an opportunity to make statements to the court ahead of sentencing.
In his statement, Yanez’ father called Morgan “a f———asshole” who “should have been put down long ago.”
Morgan’s mother Evalena Flores shouted back from the gallery and accused Yanez’s son of “causing all this” and claimed her son was the victim.
Sheriff’s deputies removed her from the courtroom as she continued to shout, leading Officer Yanez to reply, “F—- you, bitch. F—- you.”
Flores was allowed back into the courtroom shortly afterward.
Morgan was found guilty in March 2024, just three-and-a-half hours after jurors began deliberating. At his week-long trial, prosecutors played harrowing footage of the traffic stop that went from routine to deadly in seconds, claiming French’s life and seriously wounding Yanez.
As with the trial, the fifth-floor courtroom was packed Wednesday morning with officers, some in uniform, who had come to see the conclusion of the heart-rending case.
Elizabeth French, Ella French’s mother, sat with Yanez and his family. They were greeted by waves of supporters who took turns embracing them as they found their seats.
In her statement to the court, French’s mother recalled photos of her daughter that depicted a young girl who would grow into a young woman “standing proud and tall in her blue police uniform.”
“The memories, they sneak up on you, sometimes,” Elizabeth French told the judge. When that happens, she continued, “There is a knot in my stomach, my heart is squished and tears run down my face.”
Later, turning directly to face Morgan, she said “As a person of faith I know I’m supposed to forgive… I hope you come to understand how very, very precious every life is.”
Officers French, Yanez and Blas were on patrol just after 9 p.m. on Aug. 7, 2021 when their computer notified them that a Honda CRV they were following had an expired registration.
The officers approached the car and ordered the three occupants out after Yanez spotted an open bottle of alcohol on the floor where Morgan was sitting.
As the officers talked to the occupants, Morgan could be seen on police body camera video holding his cellphone, arguing and declining to put it down despite repeated requests from Yanez.
As Yanez went to take one of his arms, Morgan pushed away and moved toward the opposite side of the car. At the same time, his brother Eric Morgan, who had been driving, took off running.
Blas followed in pursuit, leaving Yanez struggling with Emonte Morgan in the front passenger side of the Honda.
As French rounded the back of the car to help her partner, Emonte Morgan fired a .22-caliber Glock he had concealed. Jurors watched body camera footage of the shooting — including from French’s camera — hearing her scream and then watching her fall to the ground.
Morgan then turned the gun on Yanez, firing several more times before stepping over the officers’ bodies and fleeing. Blas, who heard the shots, returned and confronted Morgan and exchanged gunfire.
Despite being wounded by Blas, Morgan ran away as Blas attended to his partners and made desperate radio calls for help.
Both brothers were taken into custody a short distance away, with Eric Morgan in possession of the gun used in the shooting, prosecutors said at trial.
Picked up and placed in a squad car by responding officers, French was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
The young officer was lauded as a hero and held up by city officials as a shining example of what a Chicago police officer should be.
In a botched police raid on the home of Anjanette Young, for which the police department received harsh criticism, Young singled out French who she said was the only officer who showed her “dignity or respect.”
Arriving after the raid began and finding Young unclothed and repeatedly questioning why she was being handcuffed, French removed the handcuffs from Young and took her to a bedroom to get dressed.
Yanez survived but suffered serious injuries, including the loss of his right eye.
At Emonte Morgan’s trial, he told jurors about his intensive efforts in therapy to be able to walk again and pointed to a lump in his neck he said was a bullet that doctors believed was too dangerous to remove.
“I may not have succumbed to injuries, but I was shot four times in the head … I will never be the man that I was,” Yanez said in his statement, later adding in a comment directed at Morgan, “But I will never stop fighting.”
Emonte’s brother, Eric Morgan, 26, pleaded guilty last fall to aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, battery with a deadly weapon and obstruction of justice and was sentenced by Walowski to seven years in prison.
State records show he is serving his sentence at Pinckneyville Correctional Center with an expected parole date in June 2026.
The third passenger in the car, a young woman who was dating Eric Morgan at the time, was not charged and testified against Emonte Morgan at trial.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire & Chicago Sun-Times 2024. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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