A shootout with lawmen on a dead-end road Thursday ended a crime spree that began with a kidnapping and included the carjacking of the Gloster police chief, a high-speed chase and a string of other felonies across two states.
Sheriff’s deputies in St. Helena Parish, La., booked Dennis Jerrell Morgan, 27, 616 Avenue C, McComb, on two counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and one count of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.
Morgan was captured around 2:45 p.m. after he allegedly shot at two Mississippi Highway Patrol troopers as authorities from Mississippi and Louisiana surrounded him on a dead-end road in Greensburg, La.
Morgan will likely face additional charges in Mississippi surrounding a shootout with Gloster police and reported home invasion and kidnapping in McComb.
Pike County sheriff’s Chief Investigator Bruce Fairburn said Morgan had been released from the Pike County jail on probation on Monday. Morgan has a history of burglary charges, Fairburn said.
The events that led to Morgan’s arrest began shortly after midnight Thursday when McComb police answered a 911 call from a child in the 300 block of South Cherry Street.
McComb Police Detective Shannon Sullivan said Morgan knocked on the front door of a woman's home and asked to be let in. The woman, whom police would not identify, refused, but Morgan would not leave, so she instructed one of her children to call 911.
Morgan allegedly forced his way into the home, brandished a pistol and demanded the keys to the woman’s 2003 Mercury Mountaineer. He then ordered the woman into her vehicle and drove away, leaving the children behind, Sullivan said.
Within a few blocks of her home, the woman managed to escape by jumping out of the vehicle, then alerted a nearby relative for help.
Nearly 12 hours later, around 12:30 p.m., Gloster Police Chief Dandridge Brooks and another officer spotted the woman’s stolen SUV in the 100 block of West Railroad Avenue in Gloster.
Officials on the scene said Brooks pulled his police cruiser behind the SUV, and Morgan began shooting at the officers as soon as they approached the SUV on foot.
The officers scrambled for cover and tried to return fire, but Morgan managed to get into the chief’s cruiser and flee.
“They retreated backwards, and somehow or another as they were trying to find cover, the guy got in the patrol car, left in it, and that’s how we got involved,” Amite County Sheriff Tim Wroten said.
No injuries resulted during the gunfight.
Deputies arrested a woman who was in the Mountaineer with Morgan during the shootout.
Wroten said Friday morning that authorities were still trying to determine if the woman was an accomplice or perhaps a hostage. She is in custody on an investigative hold at the Amite County jail.
McComb police and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation officials processed the crime scene in Gloster shortly after the shootout to collect bullet casings and other evidence.
As alerts went out, authorities in Amite and Pike counties, as well as state troopers, began canvassing the surrounding areas and setting up checkpoints on the roadways.
Within about an hour, officials received a report that Morgan had wrecked the police vehicle on Highway 569 South, then stole a woman’s Land Rover and headed towards Clinton, La.
“He stopped her, got her out of the car at gunpoint and stole her vehicle,” Wroten said.
Amite deputies then received a tip that the suspect was traveling down Bean Road, just north of the state line. From there, deputies and state troopers gave chase to the Land Rover, following it to Greensburg, La.
The manhunt ended in Greensburg, but not before one final showdown between Morgan and lawmen.
St. Helena Parish sheriff’s deputies said the suspect shot at two MHP troopers after driving down a dead-end road, where authorities closed in and eventually arrested him.
Despite all the day’s incidents, no injuries were reported.
“I was real pleased with that,” Wroten said. “The vehicles and all can be replaced, so I was pleased nobody got hurt.”
As of this morning, Morgan remained in the St. Helena Parish jail. No bond had been set.
Deputies there said Morgan will likely remain in St. Helena Parish until he answers the attempted murder and weapon charges filed in Louisiana.
At some point, the McComb native will face extradition to Mississippi and answer the charges filed in Pike and Amite counties.
“I will probably be retired when he gets out,” Wroten said.
