Sam Charles, Tess Kenny and Madeline Buckley
Chicago Tribune
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CHICAGO — Nearly five years after her death, body camera footage that captured the last moments of Chicago police Officer Ella French’s life was released to the public Wednesday.
The harrowing footage had not been publicly viewed outside of the 2024 criminal trial of the man later convicted in French’s killing. French’s partner, Carlos Yanez, Jr., was also shot and critically wounded. The videos released Wednesday do not, however, depict any injuries to French and Yanez.
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The video release from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability came in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the agency earlier this year.
“COPA is releasing this video in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and in keeping with our commitment to transparency and public accountability,” COPA chief administrator LaKenya White said in a statement Wednesday. “As we do so, it is important to remember that this video captures a profoundly tragic event. Our thoughts remain with Officer Ella French and Officer Carlos Yanez Jr., their loved ones, colleagues, and all those whose lives were forever changed by this incident. I encourage everyone who views this video and all videos COPA releases to do so with respect for those affected.”
The videos show French, Yanez and their colleague Joshua Blas driving on 63rd Street before they attempt to search three people who were traveling in a Honda SUV.
French approached the driver, Eric Morgan, and told him that she could smell burning cannabis in the vehicle before asking him to step out. Yanez, meanwhile, told Emonte Morgan, seated in the rear, that an open container of alcohol was visible.
Once outside the car, French attempted to pat down Eric Morgan while Yanez and Blas spoke with Emonte Morgan and a woman who was in the front seat. Outside the vehicle, videos show, Emonte Morgan quickly grew agitated with Yanez after Yanez told him to put his cellphone in his pocket or on the vehicle’s roof.
“Why you say that?” Emonte Morgan asked Yanez.
“Cuz I don’t want nothing in your hands,” Yanez replied.
“Whachu mean?” Morgan asked again.
“What I said,” replied Yanez.
A moment later, Eric Morgan darted away from French across 63rd Street and south on Bell. Blas gave chase as Yanez tried to wrestle Emonte Morgan into the SUV’s passenger seat.
“Don’t move, (expletive),” Yanez told him.
Then, several gunshots can be heard. French’s camera captured the sound of a gunshot and her scream before the video ends. Yanez’s body camera captured him falling to the pavement. The third officer, Joshua Blas, caught up to Eric Morgan on Bell, but he quickly returned and radioed dispatchers with a “10-1.”
Scores of police officers soon swarmed the area.
John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, the union that represents rank-and-file Chicago Police Department officers, said the videos “highlight the extreme danger of a routine traffic stop.”
He noted, too, that the officers initially curbed the vehicle for a license plate violation — an infraction police reform advocates say gives way to “pretextual” traffic stops that often result in more serious criminal charges related to guns or drugs.
“The stop produced a violent felon with a weapon in the car,” Catanzara said. “That’s why these traffic stops need to continue being made as opposed to being made illegal.”
The shooting rattled the city and Police Department, and French’s police work elicited praise in many corners across the city.
Emonte Morgan, 21, was charged with first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder of a peace officer, while Eric Morgan, 22, was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon as well as one count of obstructing justice.
Eric Morgan pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Emonte Morgan was convicted the following year and sentenced to life.
The killing of one officer and infliction of a severe injury on another came as the city saw gun violence surging amid efforts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s common for police officers to hold grudges against high-ranking bosses, but the shooting also laid bare a growing rift between then-CPD Superintendent David Brown and many of the department’s rank-and-file officers. In the days after the shooting, Brown — the former chief of police in Dallas, hired in 2020 — publicly referred to French as “Ella Fitzgerald,” and former Mayor Lori Lightfoot also publicly referred to French as “Ella Frank.”
Last year, French was commemorated with an honorary street sign in the 2600 block of South California Boulevard outside the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
At the sentencing hearing in October 2024, Emonte Morgan and his mother addressed the court. Each claimed that the prosecution was unjust and the street stop that precipitated the shooting was unlawful.
“Ella French was not murdered,” Morgan said, standing at the defense table. “She had an accidental death.”
French’s mother, Elizabeth French, thanked the prosecutors and investigators in the case, as well as Judge Ursula Walowski, before describing the pain she’s felt every day for more than three years. Photos of her daughter’s childhood — her as a baby, receiving her first communion, graduating high school — can be painful reminders, she said.
“The memories, they sneak up on me sometimes, and I am filled with grief and sadness,” French said, her voice cracking. “I don’t know that closure will ever be possible for me. … Some day my daughter and I will meet again. Until then I will miss Ella every day.”
Before concluding her statement, Elizabeth French turned to look at Emonte Morgan and address him directly. By then, many of the observers and supporters seated in the courtroom were sniffling and dabbing tears from their eyes.
“Sometimes life sucks,” Elizabeth French told Morgan. “It sucked for me when you killed my daughter … but life gives you choices.”
“There was your choice, to become the murderer of my daughter,” she added. “Life in prison means you will still have your life, something you took away from Ella.”
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