Rhode Island police shoot, kill man in truck while hunting for suspect in stolen cruiser

Bart Jansen | USA TODAY

Rhode Island authorities continued to investigate Friday the deadly police shooting of a man in a pickup truck along busy Interstate 95, but said the incident was unrelated to the theft of a state police cruiser.

One man was killed and a woman injured when at least nine police officers shot at the white pickup truck about 10:45 a.m. Thursday on the highway near Providence Place mall, police said.

Providence Public Safety Commissioner Steven Pare told WPRI-TV that investigators are reviewing recordings of the incident from body cameras some officers wore.

“I don’t know what they believed, and their justification for the use of force,” Pare said Thursday, according to Rhode Island Public Radio. “That’s all a part of the investigation.”

No weapons were found in the truck. But Providence Police Chief Hugh Clements said Friday that the driver was behaving so aggressively that several officers thought there was enough of a threat to use deadly force, according to WFXT-TV.

A witness who filmed the shooting from a neighboring on-ramp told reporters that the truck’s driver was boxed in and slammed into cars behind him and in front of him as officers surrounded it, according to The Associated Press.

Earlier Thursday, a state trooper was transporting Donald Morgan, 35, to court on charges of obstruction and possession of a stolen motor vehicle.

When the trooper stopped at a crash about 9 a.m. Thursday on Route 146 and got out of the car, Morgan allegedly climbed into the driver’s seat and drove away, Col. Ann Assumpico, superintendent of state police, told The Providence Journal.

A Providence man is wanted in connection with the theft of a RI State Police cruiser earlier today. Anyone with info on the whereabouts of Donald Morgan, 35, who has no permanent address, is asked to call RI State Police at 401-444-1000. https://t.co/jzK4iOiQNI pic.twitter.com/V4Meazr4gf — RI State Police (@RIStatePolice) November 9, 2017

The cruiser was later found in Providence’s West End. A body-shop owner said dozens of officers arrived with dogs to search for Morgan, according to the Journal.

But Morgan was not the man killed in the truck shooting.

“One has nothing to do with the other,” Pare told public radio. “So there was the theft of a troop car and there was this chase by the police officers and then deadly force was used.”