The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office filed assault charges against a U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agent and filed a warrant for his arrest following a February incident where he allegedly drew his gun on people in traffic.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced Thursday that her office charged Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with two counts of second-degree assault — felonies that carry a presumptive sentence of three years in prison. The charges are the first against a federal immigration agent for conduct on the job during President Donald Trump’s Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, which caused widespread fear and chaos.
“Driving while pointing a weapon out of your moving vehicle at the victims who were in another moving vehicle could have led to yet another disastrous incident in a community that has already suffered too many,” Moriarty said during a Thursday news conference. “Today’s charges reflect an important milestone in our efforts to seek accountability for the harms inflicted on our community during Operation Metro Surge.”
According to the criminal complaint: Morgan was headed east in a rented black SUV on Highway 62 on Feb. 5 when he illegally drove onto the shoulder near the Portland Avenue exit to pass slower-moving vehicles in traffic. Unaware that Morgan was a federal agent, a driver sitting in traffic briefly attempted to block the shoulder and slow Morgan down.
The agent allegedly pulled alongside the car, which had two occupants, rolled his window down and pointed his gun at the car before speeding off. The victims then called 911 to report the incident.
In a later interview at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building with the State Patrol, who investigated the incident, Morgan voluntarily admitted to driving recklessly and drawing his firearm, but told the troopers he drew his gun because he feared for his life when the victims cut in front of his SUV. Traffic camera footage pulled by the State Patrol showed that the victims’ car had briefly veered onto the shoulder but quickly returned to their lane, and that Morgan had an opportunity to merge or pass them but instead positioned his SUV next to the car, according to the complaint.
Moriarty told reporters Thursday that her office does not know Morgan’s place of residence or whether he is still employed by ICE. The complaint says an arrest warrant is “necessary because there is a substantial likelihood that [Morgan] will fail to respond to a summons and because his present location is not reasonably discoverable.”
An attorney and contact information for Morgan could not be immediately found Thursday. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last month, Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced they were suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department for blocking state investigators from accessing evidence in the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the wounding of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. All three were shot by federal immigration agents in January.
Moriarty said her office was able to bring charges against Morgan but not in the shooting cases because the State Patrol received no pushback and was able to thoroughly investigate the traffic incident, including securing an interview with Morgan himself.
“This case followed the typical investigation and submission process for cases coming to our office,” Moriarty said of the Morgan investigation. “Virtually none of the obstacles around evidence collection that exist for the January shootings exist in this case.”
The charges come days after Ramsey County Attorney John Choi announced two active investigations into the conduct of federal immigration agents during the surge, including one incident where ICE agents dragged 56-year-old ChongLy Scott Thao, a Hmong American man, out of his home and into the freezing cold in shorts and flip flops.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office is investigating 17 other incidents of alleged unlawful behavior by federal agents during the surge, and are asking for the public to submit information via an online portal dubbed the Transparency and Accountability Project (TAP).
Moriarty said Morgan could ask that the case be moved from state court to federal court and could invoke the Supremacy clause in his defense, which can protect federal officers from state prosecutions for actions taken within the scope of their official duties. But if he were to pursue that route, she said, the burden would be on him to prove that his conduct was part of the performance of his duties, and that her office would litigate the case in federal court.
“There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal agents who violate the law in the state of Minnesota or any other state,” she said.
