COHOES — State Police are assisting the Cohoes police in an investigation of an incident Saturday in which Mayor Shawn M. Morse grabbed an 18-year-old man by the neck during a dispute at Morse's city residence.

Cohoes assistant police Chief Tom Ross said city police officers responded to the residence after Morse called 911 and asked for assistance. Morse also serves as the public safety commissioner overseeing the police force, and Ross said he contacted State Police and briefed them on the incident.

The State Police are handling an unrelated investigation into allegations that Morse choked his wife and daughter during separate incidents last year.

Saturday's altercation began when 18-year-old Justin Rodriguez of Troy, who had dated Morse's youngest daughter, went to the mayor's residence with his mother and sister. According to police accounts, Rodriguez's mother waited in a vehicle as he and his sister went to the front door, where he asked Morse for access to clothing items that he believed were in the residence.

When the mayor refused Rodriguez's request, he allegedly told the mayor "I'll kill you right now," according to the account Morse gave to police.

According to Morse's attorney, Joseph Ahearn, the mayor grabbed Rodriguez by the neck and pushed him off the front porch. Morse told police the young man threw punches at him during the melee. Rodriguez's mother also called police and told a dispatcher her son had injuries to his neck, and that her daughter had video of the incident.

In an interview with the Times Union on Sunday, Rodriguez disputed Morse's account. He said he and his sister were pleading with the mayor to retrieve his clothing from the residence when Morse suddenly "snapped" and grabbed his throat, squeezing so hard that Rodriguez couldn't breathe; he pushed the mayor to break his grip, but did not throw any punches.

"I never threatened him (but) I know he said that," Rodriguez said. "He just grabbed me out of nowhere. I don’t know what triggered it. ... My sister said, 'Well, my brother needs his clothes back,' and something just triggered him. He just grabbed me and just started choking me. I did not threaten him, not once; I did not threaten his family."

Rodriguez, who was being interviewed by State Police investigators in Latham late Sunday afternoon, said his sister recorded the end of the incident with her phone.

Ross said Cohoes police have not seen the video and, because of Morse's oversight of the city's police department, would refer the investigation to the State Police.

Ross said that following the incident on Saturday, Rodriguez and his sister went to the Cohoes police station to file a complaint. Rodriguez was transported to Samaritan Hospital in an ambulance with what appeared to be minor injuries.

It's unclear whether State Police will file charges against Morse.

"The mayor doesn't want to file charges," Ross said.

The incident occurred as Morse has been the focus of multiple criminal investigations.

The State Police have declined to file charges against him for the November 2017 incident in which his wife, Brenda, called 911 and said her husband had grabbed her by the neck and thrown her to the ground, briefly choking her. She told investigators she had used her daughter's phone to call 911 after Morse smashed her own phone against a wall when she initially tried to call for help.

Citing multiple interviews and Family Court records, the Times Union has reported over the past year on allegations of violence by Morse, including some that reach back decades. Multiple women, including his wife and youngest daughter, have accused him of choking them in addition to other acts of physical violence.

Colleen Keller, a former girlfriend, went public last year and said that Morse had repeatedly abused her in the 1990s, including an incident in which he grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground. She said Cohoes police refused to arrest Morse when she called them for help.

Another incident involved a former girlfriend who Morse allegedly grabbed by the hair and dragged out of a Cohoes pharmacy during an argument, according to state Assemblyman John McDonald, who witnessed the incident. McDonald, a former city mayor whose family has operated Marra's Pharmacy in Cohoes for decades, said that incident took place in the late 1980s and that the woman, now a Waterford resident, worked at the pharmacy at the time.

Morse has denied ever striking or choking the women, and would not comment on the allegations filed by his daughter with child protective services investigators.

The Times Union also obtained an affidavit — never filed in court — in which Morse's wife accused her estranged husband of assaulting her throughout their 19-year marriage. The document attributes to Brenda Morse statements that her husband "has punched me, kicked me, slapped me, broken a jewelry box over my head, broken a picture frame across my back, thrown me down a flight of stairs, and slammed my face against a concrete surface, causing a bloody nose and facial cuts."



Child protective services reports — filed by investigators in Rensselaer County because of Shawn Morse's political ties in Albany County — detailed allegations that he regularly used physical violence against his younger daughter, now 16, including pulling her hair, throwing her to the ground, choking her and punching her in the head.

State Police opened an investigation of those allegations earlier this year, after the Times Union reported the details of the CPS reports, but have declined to file charges.

Morse was elected Cohoes mayor in 2015 and faces re-election next year. Before becoming mayor in the city where he grew up, he was chairman of the Albany County Legislature, a powerful figure in the county's Democratic machine, and was employed as a Cohoes firefighter from 1989 to 2015.

Morse is also the subject of an FBI investigation examining his use of political campaign accounts. The federal investigation also has probed Morse's time and attendance at a part-time security job he had held since February at the Glenmont Job Corps.

FBI agents confronted Morse at his residence in September and questioned him about his vacations, which have included a Caribbean cruise, and other matters. Albany attorney William J. Dreyer, who was retained by Morse in response to the FBI probe, has declined to comment.

The same morning that Morse was confronted by the FBI, federal agents also knocked on the door of his longtime campaign treasurer, Ralph V. Signoracci, who was served with a federal grand jury subpoena directing him to turn over records of the mayor's campaign accounts to the U.S. attorney's office in Albany.