Crime & Safety

VIDEO: Prosecutor Reveals Morgan Returned Fire Despite Being Wounded

Prosecutor John Molinelli reveals details of Feb. 6 shooting.

Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli lauded wounded Paramus officer Rachel Morgan as a hero Thursday in announcing the results of his office's investigation of the Super Bowl Sunday shooting.

Morgan and fellow officer Ryan Hayo were "more than" justified in their exchange of gunfire with Michael Carmody on a Parkway on-ramp in early February, Molinelli said.

"Our office has found that both Officer Rachel Morgan and Ryan Hayo, on the evening in question, operated in a professional manner," Molinelli said.

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Morgan, who donned her uniform Thursday for the first time since the night of the shooting, explained the 22 seconds the entire incident took to transpire felt like about eight minutes.

Carmody had returned to the Westwood home he shared with his father after attending Super Bowl party in Bogota. He stopped at the BP service station on 17 south in Paramus at about 11 p.m.

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"We know he had been drinking," Molinelli said. He said Carmody had purchased a bottle of vodka and was drinking the day of the shooting.

As he pulled his vehicle out of the station, he nearly ran into Morgan, who checked the plates on his Acura and found they matched a 1986 black Porsche 944, at the time parked in the driveway of the Westwood home where Carmody lived with his father, Molinelli said. The Porsche belonged to Carmody, but he had affixed the plates to the Acura, the prosecutor said.

Carmody fled at about 90 mph before spinning out on the on-ramp to the Garden State Parkway from Route 17 southbound, and was lodged in the grass and snow.

Carmody's car had turned completely around, and Carmody, in the driver's seat, could see Morgan get out of her car.

"He made a furtive movement with his one arm—with his right arm," Morgan said. "It dropped, which caused me to look in that direction. As the arm came back up, I saw the weapon."

Morgan tried to fold her 6-foot-tall frame into as small a space as possible when she saw the gun and began to return fire.

"I'm big out there," she said. "It was just me and grass and snow so I was a target. So I tried to make myself disappear and stop him from firing at me by firing at him."

Hayo got out of his car as Morgan approached Carmody. He saw a flash from inside Carmody's car—gunfire—and drew his weapon.

As Hayo opened fire, Carmody had shot Morgan.

The first bullet entered the right side of her lower back, causing significant internal damage before exiting through her abdomen just below her sternum, Molinelli said. After exiting it penetrated again and then came out, coming to rest between her body and her bulletproof vest.

A second bullet traveled through her hip, striking bone, and exited out her pelvic area, mangling her handcuffs as it went. She was nearly struck by another bullet that left a hole in the upper right sleeve of her shirt.

Despite her wounds, she continued to fire while lying on her back in an attempt to protect herself.

"Fight or flight," she said. "I wasn't fleeing."

Meanwhile, Hayo shot Carmody once in the left arm.

"I didn't actually see her go down," Hayo said. "I was concentrating on the person shooting her."

The driver's side door of Carmody's silver Acura, riddled with more than a dozen of Hayo and Morgan's bullets, was on display at the Prosecutor's Office. The eight lower body wounds Carmody sustained were caused by fragments of the door piercing his legs.

Hayo and Morgan both emptied their guns on Carmody, firing all 26 shots they had in their clips. Carmody fired six shots at Morgan, the investigation revealed.

Carmody used the seventh bullet on himself.

"The fatal shot was the one that was self-inflicted by Mr. Carmody," Molinelli said.

He was taken off life support at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson on Feb. 9 at 2:48 p.m. He died at 3:02 p.m.

"I didn't know if he was trying to reload in his car as well, if he was shot, if he was dead, if he was alive," he said. "All I knew was I had to get to her."

If Carmody was reloading to shoot Morgan again, she would have been an easy target, Hayo said. When he got to Morgan, she was still trying to reload.

"I'm here," he recalled saying. "Your job is done. I got you."

Morgan said it was the "best feeling ever."

Even after the investigation, which took nearly two months to complete, Molinelli could still only guess as to why Carmody was in Paramus and why he fled from Morgan at an estimated 90 miles per hour.

Molinelli offered a number of possibilities: a history of gun possession, including the weapon in the car, the fact that Carmody was driving with a suspended license, even a crack pipe found near the Acura after the shooting.

The Porsche was likely purchased with what Molinelli called a moderate inheritance that Carmody received from his grandparents.

The gun he used to shoot Morgan, a Polish weapon used during World War II, was likely an heirloom from Carmody's grandfather, who served during the war in the European theater.

"We speculate, with confidence, that in all probability, that is where Mr. Carmody came up with this gun," Molinelli said.

Molinelli said that the Attorney General's office has to still accept the conclusions of his investigation before the case is closed.

"To be able to return fire, to empty her full service weapon, not just for her own protection, but also for the protection of Officer Hayo is extraordinary," Molinelli said. "We call those people heroes, and she is."

Paramus Police Chief Christopher Brock said he would ride any night of the week with Morgan and Hayo backing him up.

"Their actions and professionalism that night not only make me proud, the Paramus Police Department proud, but I think I can speak for all law enforcement: These are the type of two officers that we hope to get into the field," he said.


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