‘I can hope that you come to learn ... how very wrong it was’: mother of Ella French speaks as man pleads guilty to charges connected to Chicago officer’s death

CHICAGO — Elizabeth French was crying when she turned and directly addressed Eric Morgan, a 25-year-old man who on Thursday admitted to his role in the shooting death of her daughter, Chicago police Officer Ella French.

“My faith says I have to forgive,” she told him. “I cannot do that yet.”

But she said she hopes he someday understands the value of a human life and what it meant to aid in taking her daughter’s life.

“I can hope that you come to learn and understand how very wrong it was to help take Ella’s,” French said.

In front of a courtroom full of police officers at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Morgan pleaded guilty to three felony counts for his role in the August 2021 slaying of the 29-year-old officer who was shot during a traffic stop in West Englewood. Her partner, Officer Carlos Yanez, Jr., was seriously injured.

Judge Ursula Walowski sentenced Morgan to seven years in prison, per the terms of the plea agreement.

Elizabeth French delivered a statement to the court before Morgan was formally sentenced, an emotional tribute to her daughter’s work as a police officer and an expression of the grief she said she’s lived with since she learned in the hospital that her daughter had died of her wounds.

As supporters wept in the gallery, French remembered her daughter as a baby, a teenager, a sworn officer and finally on the night she was killed. She described the silence of the small hospital room she was escorted to shortly before she was told her daughter did not survive the shooting. She told the judge about viewing her daughter’s body and later hugging her casket.

“I want to hug and hold my daughter again but all I can do is hug a flag-draped casket and then she disappears,” she said. “I miss the presence of Ella every day.”

She described Ella French’s first call as a police officer — an abandoned litter of puppies from which she took one home — and later in the months before she died, an emergency call of a baby who had been shot. She rushed the child to the hospital on her own.

French told the court about the last night she saw her daughter alive. They had dinner together, she said, chatting and hanging out.

“I walked her to her car. I hugged her and kissed her. I told her I was proud of her, and told her I would see her soon,” she said.

Yanez was in court for the hearing, and stood to hug French’s mother after she addressed the court.

Morgan was charged with 11 felonies, including gun charges and a count of obstruction of justice, but he was not charged with murder or accused of firing the shots that killed French and injured her partner. His brother, Emonte Morgan, is facing charges of first-degree murder and other felonies.

Morgan pleaded guilty to aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, aggravated battery with a dangerous weapon and obstruction of justice. In exchange, prosecutors offered sentences of seven years, five years and three years on the three counts to run concurrently.

“There is no legal or reasonable reason for me not to go along with this,” Walowski said as she accepted the agreement.

Elizabeth French said she does not believe a seven-year sentence is long enough, but said it was not because she is a “vengeful person.”

“Every day for the rest of your life, your mother will be able to tell you how much she loves you,” she said. “Your actions took that.”

In a brief statement, Eric Morgan offered condolences to the family, though concluded his statement by saying he believes his brother is innocent.

“I wish I could take back that night but you cant take back time,” he said. “I still believe my brother is innocent in this case.”

His attorney, Roger Brown, said what happened to French and Yanez was tragic.

“How do we get the guns out of the hands of young people. What makes them want to have a gun in their hands?” he said. “That is the question we must ask and must solve.”

Prosecutors have alleged that Emonte Morgan fired multiple shots at the officers after French and two fellow officers stopped a gray SUV driven by Eric Morgan near West 63rd Street and South Bell Avenue on Aug. 7, 2021. Emonte Morgan was also shot during the confrontation.

French and her two fellow officers pulled over the SUV for expired plates, while Eric Morgan was driving his brother and a female passenger, prosecutors have said.

Eric Morgan handed over the keys when asked, prosecutors said at the 2021 bail hearing, but Emonte Morgan refused to put down a drink and a cellphone he was holding, leading to a scuffle, prosecutors said.

Eric Morgan ran away, while Emonte Morgan fired shots at the officers during the scuffle, prosecutors alleged.

French and her partner fell to the ground between the car and the curb, prosecutors said, with both their guns still holstered. The third officer had been chasing Eric Morgan.

The third officer returned and was fired upon by Emonte Morgan, prosecutors said. He returned fire and hit Morgan.

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