Donald Morgan, the fugitive wanted for stealing a police cruiser in Rhode Island on Thursday, has been found after more than a day on the run.
Donald Morgan, the fugitive wanted for stealing a police cruiser in Rhode Island, has been found after more than a day on the run and two others are also facing charges.
Morgan, 35, of Providence, was found Friday night in Cumberland and is back in the custody of the Rhode Island State Police. The department said he was apprehended by members of the Rhode Island Violent Fugitive Task Force.
Two other people, Daniel Medeiros, 54, of Cumberland, and Rachael Read, 47, of Cumberland, were arrested and charged with harboring a criminal.
Morgan was originally arrested Wednesday on charges of obstruction and possession of a stolen motor vehicle, RISP Col. Ann Assumpico said. He was being taken to court around 9 a.m. Thursday when he was left alone and handcuffed in the vehicle because the trooper stepped out to check on an accident, she said.
The cruiser was found within the hour, abandoned, in Providence after police tracked it there with the car’s GPS system, but the thief was not located. Police launched a search throughout the neighborhood and were seen searching house to house with rifles and dogs.
Less than two hours after Morgan allegedly stole the cruiser, officers engaged in a chase in Providence that culminated in officers firing dozens of gunshots on Interstate 95. Two occupants of a white pickup truck were killed.
Police initially said the shooting and theft were related, but then said that the man who stole the police cruiser was not the same man who was killed in the pickup truck. A woman who was in the truck was wounded.
Morgan is scheduled to be arraigned in court on Saturday, state police said.